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We're causing confusion

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Ch interpreter (2nd nomination) indicates that the current text at WP:CORPDEPTH is tripping up some editors. Specifically, consider this scenario (using a drug company as an example):

  • BigPharmaCo makes a product, Curesitall
  • Dr X, employed by BigPharmaCo, writes a clearly non-marketing paper about the product, e.g., "The pharmacodynamics of Curesitall in short, skirt-wearing Martians"
  • The paper is published (as a regular article) in a completely independent, absolutely reputable publication (e.g., Academic Journal of Impressiveness: an Elsevier publication).

Now:

We agree that www.BigPharmaCo.com is an utterly worthless source for showing notability of the product. So is any advertisement they paid for.

But is the independence of the publication (that is, the editors and the printers and the distributors, rather than the author) enough to show make this particular source useful as a demonstration of notability? I think it probably is, but what do you think? WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:46, 6 May 2011 (UTC)

Is the AJI aware of the COI? Is the COI disclosed in the article? Does BigPharma have a full-page ad in that issue of the AJI? Cases, as they say, vary. --Orange Mike | Talk 00:27, 7 May 2011 (UTC)
Getting in to that level of assessment is I think dangerous and risking POV. As for the original question, the article might make Curesitall notable but not necessarily BigPharmaCo. You still need some kind of independent sources talking about the company to at least start the article off for information. Where do you think the "confusion" is?--Icerat (talk) 04:59, 7 May 2011 (UTC)
IMO such an article could at most speak to the notability of the product, not the manufacturer (or author), since the product is the subject of the article.
Icerat, it appears to be possible to (in good faith) interpret the existing wording as both clearly rejecting this article and accepting it as (one) indication of notability. WhatamIdoing (talk) 05:49, 7 May 2011 (UTC)
Reading better through the AfD mentioned, I see what you mean. The WP:CORPDEPTH "independence of sources" section appears to be the issue, in that with the example of a peer-reviewed journal, independent people have considered it a "notable" enough topic to publish, but someone independent didn't actually write the information as WP:CORPDEPTH would indicate is necessary. One could change the wording to "published" but then you get in to the issue or republishing of press releases, which is a world away from publishing an ostensibly peer-reviewed article. Some wording that makes the difference clear would appear useful. Hmm ... How about a simple change like or for and -
A primary test of notability is whether people independent of the subject itself (or its manufacturer, creator, or vendor) have actually considered the company, corporation, product or service notable enough, for example, they have written or published non-trivial, non-routine works that focus upon it.--Icerat (talk) 06:10, 7 May 2011 (UTC)
"non-trivial, non-routine works" would exclude press releases but "or published" would now incorporate independently published/not independently written peer-reviewed works. --Icerat (talk) 06:10, 7 May 2011 (UTC)
As another example, I think if a recognized publisher published a book about a topic, even if written by a non-independent source, that would speak to notability.--Icerat (talk) 06:15, 7 May 2011 (UTC)
If a non-independent author writes a work that is published by an independent publisher, and that work is the only source for claiming notability, I have to question whether notability is established. Surely if the topic is notable, there will be at least one completely independent reliable source that discusses it. Blueboar (talk) 13:01, 7 May 2011 (UTC)
I agree, and that's already addressed - "A single independent source is almost never sufficient for demonstrating the notability of an organization". I think an example as given contributes to notability, but standing alone it doesn't establish it.--Icerat (talk) 16:04, 8 May 2011 (UTC)
The question, paraphrased could read, "does reliability equal notability." Is that a correct paraphrase? So if the source is extremely reliable, does that, all by itself, make the topic (or whatever) notable?
It seems to me that one can state plenty of reliable quotes that don't result in notability, to play devil's advocate. For example, a NY Times police blotter type of report where a nn person is accused of something. That wouldn't, by itself, make the person notable, although be it far from me to question the Times. Quite reliable, usually. Student7 (talk) 21:57, 8 May 2011 (UTC)
Well, in that instance WP:BLP would advise against use of that as an RS, as does WP:NOTNEWS.--Icerat (talk) 22:22, 8 May 2011 (UTC)
Really? If, say, some politician gets arrested, say for drunk driving, and The New York Times reports the arrest in a typical police-blotter column, you think that editors should not be permitted to add this information to the pre-existing article about an obviously notable politician?
Or do you only mean (as Student7 says) that we should not start articles on each of the thousands of people who get arrested each day? WhatamIdoing (talk) 04:30, 12 May 2011 (UTC)
I'd suggest that if a notable politician got arrested for drunk driving, there would be more of a report than just a "typical police-blotter column". If not, then no, it shouldn't be added to the article. This is sensible if for no other reason than you may have the wrong person. --Icerat (talk) 12:39, 12 May 2011 (UTC)
Per WP:NOTNEWS... When a famous person is arrested, we should wait to see what the significance of the arrest is. The arrest may end up being a minor embarrassment (in which case mentioning it at all would probably give the event undue weight), or it may end up having a major impact on the subject's career. Blueboar (talk) 13:53, 14 May 2011 (UTC)

Arrest (police blotter)

Didn't want to digress the above thread too much, but it does occur to me that we are adding "police blotter" stuff to articles which have reports from third world countries where the wheels of justice turn slowly, if at all, sometimes retarded/advanced by corruption. In fact, most of our reports from third world countries are like this. We wouldn't report anything at all, if it weren't for the "police blotter" (some reports aren't that good!).

The reports tend to be "top of the head" primary source type of reports that have to be severely edited. Meanwhile interested editors are standing by screaming "foul" when tabloid type info is edited out, or reworded in a more calm manner. Editors on "these other articles" have worked things out. I'm not suggesting a policy change, but there are (alas) other scenarios that do not follow the West's methodical report, arrest, trial, conviction/dismissal scenarios. There are some that seemingly continue "forever." A long saga with groups of people taking sides. Think OJ Simpson, or other contentious media events. But think of articles where nearly all events are like that, except they never seem to reach trial and resolution. Student7 (talk) 13:20, 14 May 2011 (UTC)

First, I would ask people to read WP:NOTNEWS. When it comes to a BLP, we should go slow and hold off on reporting an arrest (and remember, an arrest is not the same as a conviction) ... that does not mean we should never mention that the subject has been arrested, it means we wait to see what the long term significance of the arrest is (and focus on that significance in our article, rather than the arrest itself). Blueboar (talk) 13:38, 14 May 2011 (UTC)
Rather than be vague, try Christian_terrorism#India. I don't think there's a single instance of conviction. A few arrests, though. Not sure I can detect an actual arraignment. This is typical third world. BTW, what you are looking at is heavily massaged material since the reports are often somewhat tabloid in nature and often second-hand, since the reporters aren't too excited about getting them firsthand!  :( Please comment here rather than there so I don't get accused of canvassing! Editors are able to "work this out" over time. Resident editors, often relatively new to Wikipedia, tend to be highly annoyed that tabloid-type, subjective reports get edited. Oh, well. Student7 (talk) 19:09, 16 May 2011 (UTC)

Peak bodies

I'm just wondering if anyone thinks it necessary to specifically mention peak organisations on this page?

I refer to those organisations whose scope unites (in some sense) several other organisations and whose limitation is territorial (specifically national or state/provincial). See, for example, Canadian Federation of Medical Students, Confederation of Public Sector Unions, and Association of Art Museum Directors.

Speaking for myself, I treat such orgs as inherently notable. However, I still had to remove notability tags from those listed above. It may be useful, therefore, to mention them. LordVetinari (talk) 08:23, 9 June 2011 (UTC)

I think we should hold them to the same standards of notability, and avoid giving them special mention. There seem to be many self-styled associations and federations that represent few people and are not notable. Also, other associations may not be as notable as individual members. --Hroðulf (or Hrothulf) (Talk) 11:50, 9 June 2011 (UTC)
I see your point. I hadn't thought of that. I'll go back and recheck the ones I mentioned above. Thank you. LordVetinari (talk) 12:32, 9 June 2011 (UTC)

Notability and consumer product reports

The article says "Sources used to support a claim of notability include independent, reliable publications in all forms, such as newspaper articles, books, television documentaries, websites, and published reports by consumer watchdog organizations..."

Could we clarify what is meant by "published reports by consumer watchdog organizations"? If a sprocket-making company has its products reviewed in "Sprocket Users Journal", is that notability? I'd suggest not. And even if its products occasionally get reviewed in general-circulation consumer journals like Consumer Reports, is that alone enough to establish notability?

I'd suggest that notability requires coverage that goes beyond routine product reviewing. Can we clarify the criterion? Perchloric (talk) 03:30, 27 February 2011 (UTC)

Can you give us an example of how this is being misunderstood? I think that run-of-the-mill reviews ("we have reviewed every single sprocket on the market") would be unhelpful, but more selective reviews ("we reviewed three models of sprockets") and reports ("Sprocket exposé: Joe's Sprockets linked to fatalities") might be very useful. WhatamIdoing (talk) 03:56, 27 February 2011 (UTC)
I'm thinking about a case like JoMoX (see discussion at WP:Articles for deletion/JoMoX). Their "sprocket" is electronic music machines. Of course they are mentioned in consumer reviews in journals for synthesizer enthusiasts. Someone might argue that this meets the requirements of WP:CORP because those reviews correspond to "published reports by consumer watchdog organizations". But presumably this is not right, the term "consumer watchdog organization" should mean something more than routine coverage in niche consumer journals. So what kind of product reviews would be enough to establish notability? I agree that an exposé would count. But can a sufficient amount of routine "JoMoX's latest drum module gets 4 stars" coverage add up to notability? I'd like to suggest not, I think one would need articles about the company itself, in the wider press. If I saw an article in a major publication like the Wall Street Journal about this company's impact, I would be convinced of notability. Am I right to think that (roughly) is the WP standard? Perchloric (talk) 03:45, 28 February 2011 (UTC)
That's an interesting example, and I am going to think about it for a while.
Here are my initial thoughts: The trivially available sources for this company look mostly like product reviews in specialized/industry media. Some of them are probably routine reviews. Some of them (e.g., [1]) are more than routine reviews, but they don't exactly feel like regular news reporting. (Also, in that particular source, it technically seems to be a separate, but related company.)
If you limited yourself to WP:Independent sources (the only ones that matter for notability), I'm not sure you could say very much about the business itself. The subject of the article would primarily be its products (which is okay). But even then, I'm not sure what you could say that wouldn't amount to a list of product features, which is WP:NOT what Wikipedia is about.
Consumer organization seems to be the relevant Wikipedia article on 'consumer watchdog organizations'. This guideline doesn't seem to address more typical product reviews at all. WhatamIdoing (talk) 04:19, 28 February 2011 (UTC)
The problem is that there is only one US Consumer review, Consumer Reports, that most people trust. And I don't trust "Sprocket Monthly" who gives a lavish report on all new products, good or bad. An allied problem is no CR for other countries unless the product is common and sold in the US. Student7 (talk) 14:37, 1 March 2011 (UTC)
This past week at WP:COIN, it appears that Quackwatch is considered to be a "consumer watchdog organization" by some editors. WhatamIdoing (talk) 14:58, 13 June 2011 (UTC)

Essay elevation to Guideline proposal

You are invited to join the discussion at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Military history/Notability guide#Essay to Guideline. RightCowLeftCoast (talk) 22:02, 12 June 2011 (UTC) (Using {{pls}})

internetretailer.com as a source?

I'm seeing a disconcerting number of company pages use links to internetretailer.com as their main or only sources of independent references. Has there been any discussion on the merits of this website? I'm not familiar with the field but it looks like it's snippets from press releases without substantial independent critical input. They seem to have "top500" lists but I'm unable to find an description of the methodology to creating it. My underlying concern is that they're taking money (via subscriptions) from the companies they're promoting, making them noon-independent. Stuartyeates (talk) 20:14, 11 August 2011 (UTC)

I've not heard of it before, and it's not listed in the WP:RSN archives.
Their magazine is probably an okay source (it doesn't seem to be the sort where you pay to have an "article" published). The press releases would not indicate notability. WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:21, 11 August 2011 (UTC)

High schools once again

OrangeMike has removed this:

For example, some Wikipedians have argued that the age of the students determines whether a school is notable. This is not the case. Secondary schools which have never been discussed by published independent sources are not notable; elementary schools which have been discussed by published independent sources are notable. It is the existence of published independent sources, not the age of the students that makes school notable.

on the grounds that prior permission for the change was apparently not adequately documented on this talk page immediately before its addition. Whether it is "phrased in a gratuitously argumentative manner" is more than I care to comment on. Here are links to five discussions in the archives, zero of which supported the idea that the age of the students is what makes a school notable. Here are links to four failed proposals trying to get this idea approved. The inherent notability of high schools has never been supported by this or any other notability guideline. The community has rejected this claim every time it has been given an opportunity to consider it. The fact that a small number of people (many of them both teenagers and rather inexperienced editors) quote a disputed essay at AFDs as a justification for deleting apparently notable schools for younger children, or for keeping tiny high schools whose only proof of existence is their own websites, does not create a magic exemption for high schools. WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:51, 19 August 2011 (UTC)

Indeed it was correctly removed. TerriersFan (talk) 22:05, 19 August 2011 (UTC)

Strengthen the notability criteria for companies

The current criteria:

if it has been the subject of significant coverage in reliable, independent secondary sources. Trivial or incidental coverage of a subject by secondary sources is not sufficient to establish notability.

are not strong enough. It's very easy for a business to manufacture "independent, secondary source" coverage, since there is no limit to paper size on the Web.

Simply writing a press release and submitting it to the right places, with certain other PR steps, is enough to earn a mention in several news sources, particularly online ones.

I'm looking particularly at the Sentiment Analysis article, which I just edited. It appears that editing Wikipedia is part of several companies' marketing schemes. The individual companies' pages have external references, yes -- but they are from places like "Xconomy.com". Is that really sufficient for notability? Or are these companies just playing by the letter of Wikipedia's rules as part of their marketing scheme?


Now, a mention in a print paper (it costs to print more pages and a thicker paper is less desirable) with a decently big readership is probably sufficient to make a company notable. A feature-length article in the WSJ would certainly be sufficient.

I'm not saying that WSJ mention needs to be a necessary criterion -- but the current criteria are asking to be gamed, and apparently already have been gamed. Crasshopper (talk) 21:39, 22 September 2011 (UTC)

This is not a failure of the criteria, but of the examination of the sources. Xconomy.com and the like do not constitute the requisite reliable sources; nor do the portions of Reuters and the like that simply regurgitate press releases. --Orange Mike | Talk 22:56, 22 September 2011 (UTC)
To continue the above, these two sentences potentially contradict each other:
If the depth of coverage is not substantial, then multiple independent sources should be cited to establish notability. Trivial or incidental coverage of a subject is not sufficient to establish notability.
If there's been trivial or incidental coverage of an organization in multiple secondary sources, is that sufficient to establish notability? The first sentence seems to indicate that notability is a quantitative feature, while the stress in the second sentence is squarely on quality.—Biosketch (talk) 12:52, 25 October 2011 (UTC)
What is trivial or incidental coverage? Is this [2] trivial? Or this [3], or this [4]? as these are the kinds of sorces being discused here [5]. I see no contradiction, it says that either one very in-depth source or multiple non-in-depth sources are needed to establish notability.Slatersteven (talk) 13:09, 25 October 2011 (UTC)

NonProfit that works local and worlwide

can we write a page about ourselves? Does notable mean when we have been in local and national news? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.85.109.61 (talk) 22:40, 22 October 2011 (UTC)

1. You should not write about yourselves; see WP:COI and WP:AUTOBIO.
2. Notability is covered at WP:CORP. --Orange Mike | Talk 23:17, 22 October 2011 (UTC)

"No inherited notability"

I think the guideline is a little too narrowly focussed in this regard, as it seems largely to be written from the perspective of corporations, which are legal entities that issue shares owned by individuals or other legal entities. However, it is not adequate in terms of organizations that are partnerships. While I accept that notability is not always "transferrable", separate consideration ought to be given when an organization is a partnership. Without the individual partners, there is no partnership or legal entity. In many ways, the organization and its partners are intertwined, such that it is difficult to separate the firm from its partners. I suggest that consideration should be given to circumstances when a group of independently notable individuals enter into a partnership and the organization is a manifestation of those partners. It may be a somewhat imperfect analogy, but an organization that is a partnership of notable individuals might be akin to a band made up of notable musicians who established their notability prior to the formation of the group. I am not suggesting that a partnership is automatically notable because its partners are notable; I am merely suggesting that it is a criterion that should be considered in conjunction with other evidence of notability. Agent 86 (talk) 23:59, 19 November 2011 (UTC)

No I think it is fine as it is. Mtking (edits) 02:39, 20 November 2011 (UTC)
I agree... the policy is fine as it is. Notable people can form non-notable partnerships, just as notable partnerships can be formed by non-notable people. For a partnership to be notable, it needs to be notable as an entity in its own right ... and not rely on "inherited" notability from its partners. Blueboar (talk) 03:03, 20 November 2011 (UTC)
  • I think you've both missed the point. I'm not saying that a partnership is notable merely because of it has notable partners. What I am saying is that because a partnership, at law, is not an entity independent of its partners, one factor to consider within the larger circumstances is the nature of its constituent partners. While it may verge on a tautology to say so, since CORP is a guideline, consideration of such things would offer further guidance. (And, FWIW, "I think it's fine" provides no real rationale beyond mere contradiction.) Agent 86 (talk) 19:57, 20 November 2011 (UTC)
    • The whole can be greater than the sum of its parts. Vegaswikian (talk) 20:43, 20 November 2011 (UTC)
      • Can you explain what you mean by that? It's ambiguous and can be taken several ways. I'd be interested in reading more about what you are thinking. Thanks. Agent 86 (talk) 20:52, 20 November 2011 (UTC)
        • A company, even if owned by two people, may produce more value then you can attribute solely to those two individuals. Does that help? I mean this is a common concept so I would have thought that the meaning here is clear. Bottom line is that if a company is notable, it does not mean that by default so are it's owners. Vegaswikian (talk) 21:02, 20 November 2011 (UTC)
          • Clearly the notability (or not) of a firm has no direct correlation to the notability (or not) of it's members, owners or directors. Mtking (edits) 23:25, 20 November 2011 (UTC)
          • Agent 86 seems to be attempting this from the other direction: If Nancy Notable and Joe Filmstar and Paul Political form a partnership, then he believes the partnership should deserve a separate, stand-alone article entirely about the partnership because the owners are notable, not because the partnership itself has attracted notice from reliable sources. WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:25, 21 November 2011 (UTC)
  • Thanks, Vegaswikian. I agree with that take on the sentiment; however, I am also considering it in the broader context of the nature of a partnership, the existence of which is dependent upon and cannot be independent from its partners. Unlike a corporation, where anyone can buy shares, becoming a member of a partnership is more intrinsically related to the nature and qualities of the person who is a potential partner. Therefore, simply asserting that the notability of a partnership (which does not have "directors", unlike a corporation) has no direct correlation to the notability of its members is absurd. If a group of notable film directors, animators, and record executives formed a partnership, the corporality of which is wholly dependent upon the individuals forming the partnership, then that is an indicia that the partnership might have some notability. However, the notability of the partnership still would require other signs of notability. Thus, notability is not automatically conferred (which is not what I have been saying), but it is but a single factor to consider, giving reason to believe that there may be the potential for notability. Cheers. Agent 86 (talk) 21:04, 21 November 2011 (UTC)
    Not exactly. If you want to write an article about the partnership, then you need to find sources about the partnership, not about the partners. If no such sources exist (e.g., all your sources about the Grand Research Alliance is a brief mention in news articles actually about one of the famous partners), then you shouldn't write an article at [[Grand Research Alliance]]. You should instead create a ==Section== in the [[Famous Partner]] article that discusses their involvement in the partnership. "Doesn't (currently) qualify for its own, separate, stand-alone article" is not the same thing as "Must never be mentioned anywhere in Wikipedia".
    You are sort of right about the involvement of notable individuals giving an indication that it might be notable. However, that "might" only protects you from speedy deletion under WP:A7. It does not give you any help at all under WP:N or CORP. WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:28, 21 November 2011 (UTC)
    • I think you and I are more in agreement than you think, WhatamIdoing. I think I have steadfastly maintained that if the only indicia of notability is the composition of the partnership, that alone is not enough. What I am saying is that it is something to consider when weighing the other sources relating to notability under CORP. I guess the flip side of what I'm saying is that you cannot ignore the fact that an partnership is comprised of notable individuals, who are intrinsically and inherently part of the entity, unlike a corporation where it's perfectly reasonable to ignore who the shareholders might be. Agent 86 (talk) 21:45, 21 November 2011 (UTC)
      Perhaps the major point behind notability isn't clear. Have you ever read Wikipedia:Notability#Why_we_have_these_requirements (a relatively new section)? We're not requiring multiple independent sources just for the fun of it. We're requiring this because you cannot write a decent encyclopedia article under any other circumstances. WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:37, 21 November 2011 (UTC)

Issue with this statement

Inclusion in "best of", "top 100", and similar lists generally does not count towards notability, unless the list itself is so notable that each entry can be presumed notable. Examples of the latter include the Fortune 500 or a Michelin Guide to restaurants.

I wish to bring up an issue with this statement. At WT:Food we have been having a discussion about Michelin stars, as this statement runs afoul of guidelines we use in determining notability of restaurants. Because of the inherent subjectivity of reviews, regardless of the source's status, age, public standing and/or fame, we do not allow them to be used to establish notability. In a series of recent AfD discussions, the quoted statement has been used to claim that Micheline stars automatically confer notability on a restaurant; this is problematic for several reasons:

  1. There is a lack of defined, objective metrics that Michelin uses in determining the status of restaurants
  2. There are allegations of an institutional, cultural bias to non-French cuisine by former employees of the company and food critics in other countries
  3. There are claims that the reviewers for the company are poorly treated, paid and trained which can cause less than objective reviews of restaurants

All of these problems are documented in the Michelin guide article. Additionally there have been claims by contributors that Michelin stars are somehow an award similar to the Academy Awards or the Nobel Prize as opposed to what they are - a review with an arbitrary ratings metric no different to 1-10 scales, Two-thumbs up etc. Comparing the Michelin guide to the Fortune 500 as is done in this statement is also a problem because the F500 is a list of companies that meet defined set of criteria that can be easily duplicated. Because of these issues, Michelin under normal circumstances would not be considered a reliable source, but because of it's inclusion here it is now being claimed by several editors that Michelin stars automatically confers notability. While some people hold the Micheline guide as a reference to restaurants, we need to look at what is, a travel guide that features the subjective opinions of its editors and that it is no different than those guides published by Fodor's or the American Automobile Association.

All in all I would like to see the statement edited to remove the Michelin guide references to alleviate this problem. --Jeremy (blah blah • I did it!) 16:23, 17 December 2011 (UTC)

Well the same thing can be argued with the Nobel Peace Prize and the Academy awards. There arbitrary criteria also factor in. Oscars are generally won by drama films which deal with a big societal issue. And the selection of Nobel Peace Prize is a political decision by the Norwegian Parliament, there have been several controversial awards over the years. I doubt there is any award which operates on 100% objective criteria. SpeakFree (talk)(contribs) 21:19, 19 December 2011 (UTC)
That's all true, but the problem with this guideline is that it elevates a guidebook to notabilty arbiter. That's akin, for movies, to saying that being listed in the Allmovie Guide makes a movie notable. Now, most movies in that guide may well be notable. But we can't rely upon that guide. We have our own criteria. ScottyBerg (talk) 22:51, 19 December 2011 (UTC)
I just noticed that under the notability rules for people, an entry in Marquis Who's Who is not sufficient to establish notability. That's at least as exclusive as the Michelin Guide. ScottyBerg (talk) 23:00, 19 December 2011 (UTC)
No need for a change here. Most of the critical comments come from ex-employees with a grudge and restaurants who lost, or did not get, a star. Besides that, how on earth are you going to make "defined, objective metrics" voor things like service, presentation, atmosphere and taste? Night of the Big Wind talk 02:02, 18 December 2011 (UTC)
I agree with Jeremy for the reasons that he stated, and as a matter of fact I was going to raise the issue here myself but he beat me to it. ScottyBerg (talk) 15:23, 18 December 2011 (UTC)
That is the problem with a food review, they cannot be subjective. What one reviewer finds unbelievably tasty another may find merely pedestrian which is mentioned in the article on Michelin. Opinions differ between people and a lack of defined metrics makes the review process unreliable. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Jerem43 (talk • contribs)
And that is just why they use more then one inspector to judge a restaurant. Night of the Big Wind talk 17:00, 18 December 2011 (UTC)
See also here Night of the Big Wind talk 17:53, 18 December 2011 (UTC)
That is an opinion piece, not an article from a reliable source. --Jeremy (blah blah • I did it!) 23:45, 18 December 2011 (UTC)
Opinion pieces can meet the definition of a WP:Reliable source. You might want to go read WP:RSOPINION if you're having trouble with the idea that we can reliably support subjective statements. WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:52, 19 December 2011 (UTC)
That is for establishing reliability of articles, not bolstering your opinion in a discussion. --Jeremy (blah blah • I did it!) 01:19, 20 December 2011 (UTC)
We do not establish the "reliability of articles". We establish the notability of subjects (the purpose of this page), and the reliability of individual statements in articles (which RSOPINION says can be done for subjective statements). WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:33, 20 December 2011 (UTC)
We're not trying to write articles about good restaurants. We're trying to write articles about restaurants that get a lot of attention from WP:Independent sources, even if they're truly lousy. Can you honestly say that you've ever run across a restaurant that was awarded three stars in the Michelin Guide, and didn't get enough newspaper and magazine articles to write an article about the restaurant?
There's nothing in this rule of thumb that says only three-star restaurants are notable, or that the third star itself is what makes the restaurant qualify for an article on Wikipedia. We're just saying that—as with US Presidents and atomic elements—nobody's ever found one yet for which dozens of independent sources couldn't be found by anyone who bothered to look. WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:03, 18 December 2011 (UTC)
I just wanted to mention that the footnote was added on March 23[6] after a brief discussion[7] that did not focus on the Michelin guide in any detail. ScottyBerg (talk) 18:26, 18 December 2011 (UTC)
The problem is that just because it is reviewed by Michelin, does mean it is noteworthy. The star ratings may get the place noticed, but by themselves the ratings do not establish noteworthiness. --Jeremy (blah blah • I did it!) 23:42, 18 December 2011 (UTC)
Yes, precisely. That's why I'd suggest that this offhand language, placed rather casually in a footnote, needs to be removed.ScottyBerg (talk) 02:01, 19 December 2011 (UTC)
So you accepts that Michelin stars make a restaurant noteworthy but want it stated on a more prominent place??????? Night of the Big Wind talk 02:23, 19 December 2011 (UTC)
No, the reference to Michelin ratings should be removed entirely from the notability guideline. ScottyBerg (talk) 02:28, 19 December 2011 (UTC)
But you still haven't found a single example of a Michelin three-star restaurant that wasn't actually notable. Why should we remove an apparently accurate statement?
Put another way, why is it okay to say that someone who wins an Oscar is notable—not because winning makes you inherently notable, but because all winners get a lot of publicity—but it's not okay to say that someone who wins a third star is notable, even though three-star restaurants get just as much publicity? WhatamIdoing (talk) 05:47, 19 December 2011 (UTC)

(restoring indent) Because we're not just talking about Michelin three-star restaurants, but every restaurant ever rated by that guidebook, at any level. We're elevating a guidebook that has rated thousands of restaurants to the status of the Academy Awards, and granting automatic notability to all restaurants mentioned by that restaurant guidebook and that restaurant guidebook alone. So if at any time in history a restaurant received a one-star Michelin or “bib gourmand” rating, "good value for the money," it automatically is considered notable. The bib gormand rating goes back 56 years.

Since notability is permanent, this means that every one-star and “bib gourmand” restaurant in the history of the Michelin Guide warrants an article. There are currently 4000 Michelin restaurants in France alone. While such restaurants are likely to be notable if they are in the United States, because so few U.S. restaurants are rated by the Michelin Guide, I don't think that can be said with any confidence outside of the U.S., and especially in France.

If we raise the cutoff above one, where do we make it? Do we limit that only to, say, two star restaurants outside of France and above two stars in France?

And why just Michelin? Why not extend the same automatic notability to restaurants that get the AAA Five Diamond Award? "For 2010, just 0.28 percent of the 58,000 AAA/CAA Approved lodgings and restaurants (31,000 lodgings and 27,000 restaurants) that received the prestigious designation." It's possible that all such restaurants are notable. Then why not four? Why not one? Why not just Five-Diamond restaurants outside of the U.S.?

And what about the Forbes Travel Guide, formerly known as the Mobil Guide? I think that to avoid being discriminatory we would have to include at least some restaurants from both the AAA and Mobil/Forbes guides, if we're going to include guidebooks. Then the question would be, at what level? We're talking about thousands if not hundreds of thousands of restaurants, many if not most totally run of the mill, and I think that would include many if not most French Michelin one-star and “bib gourmand” restaurants that have existed throughout history.

As a matter of fact, the way the guideline is now written, such guidebooks may possibly be included, because the footnote says "examples of the latter include." Only Michelin is singled out as a "list . . . so notable that each entry can be presumed notable." Why not include the AAA and Forbes guidebooks? Why are we singling out Michelin? Why not the restaurants praised by the Fodor guides, the Frommer guidebooks or Lonely Planet? I think that a better idea, for notability purposes, is to simply make no reference to any guidebook's rankings, and simply include restaurants that have received coverage in multiple independent sources.ScottyBerg (talk) 11:33, 19 December 2011 (UTC)

Scotty, try to be realistic. "Michelin starred restaurants" is just one category within the wider category of notable restaurants. Another categories within the notable restaurants could be the restaurants named in the AAA, Mobil/Forbes, or other guides. If those categories don't exist, my answer is simple: fixit. They are not less the Michelin restaurants, they are just mentioned in another guide. If there is a guide for the best hotdog and hamburger restaurants in the USA and Canada, and the community decides that it is a valuable, noteworthy guide, Wikipedia should have articles about them. But even then restaurants can be notable for other reasons than great food, like Nam Kee (which featured in a best-selling Dutch novel and a film based on the novel), Yankee Doodle Coffee Shop (frequented by students who later became US presidents), Columbia Restaurant (the oldest Spanish restaurant in the USA) and, unfortunately, the Golden Dragon, San Francisco (Golden Dragon massacre). Night of the Big Wind talk 21:46, 19 December 2011 (UTC)
If those restaurants are notable, then that should be determined by reliable third party sources, not by what some guidebook says about them whether it is Michelin, Mobil AAA, Frommer, Fodor or some other. Our standards have always been that notability is determined by sources, not by third party reference works, whether or not they view their ratings as "awards" or as ultimate arbiters of "fine dining." We don't care if the food they serve is any good. We only care if the restaurant meets notability standards. It could be swill for all we care. This is an encyclopedia, not a fine-dining guide. ScottyBerg (talk) 22:06, 19 December 2011 (UTC)
The Michelin Guide is a "reliable third-party source". In fact, if the statement you're trying to support is "This restaurant was awarded two stars in the Michelin Guide," then the Guide is the single most reliable source in the universe for that statement, and the fact that the Guide is a third-party (=not owned or controlled by the restaurants they're reviewing) is amply documented in multiple sources. WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:38, 20 December 2011 (UTC)
The issue here is not whether the Michelin Guide is a reliable third party source, but the language in the footnote that a listing can be "presumed notable." Let's focus on that and not be sidetracked. ScottyBerg (talk) 12:55, 20 December 2011 (UTC)
NotBW, central to your reply is the assumption that Michelin starred restaurants are inherently notable. This discussion is about the validity of that assumption, and what "the community"'s thoughts are regarding it. You seem to be missing that point. Pyrope 22:11, 19 December 2011 (UTC)
And central to your opinion is the assumption that Michelin starred restaurants are inherently not-notable. Do we agree to disagree? Night of the Big Wind talk 22:22, 19 December 2011 (UTC)
No, that's not my position at all. My position is that being starred does not automatically confer notability, but that stars may contribute toward notability in addition to multiple, significant, reliable, third-party sources that directly discuss the subject of the article. As I pointed out elsewhere, your article on De Swaen is extremely borderline in establishing its notability. What you have there amounts to one brief write-up in an online trade magazine, a catering supply company blog, a number of pages drawn from the restaurant or its successor's own webpages, and tabulated summaries of Michelin guides past. That's it. Not one single general circulation newspaper article, not a single reference to it ever having been discussed in the mainstream media, not any evidence that it has had any wider societal impact other than being a place that some people in Oisterwijk occasionally ate at and that chefs worked there. It is a mundane, even dull, article that adds little to no encyclopedic value. Despite its Michelin star this restaurant, from the sources provided, seems to have been a distinctly run-of-the-mill establishment. All you can really say is "it was a restaurant and now it is not", because that's all the sources say. That isn't an encyclopedia entry, it's a directory entry, and Wikipedia is not a directory. Pyrope 15:22, 20 December 2011 (UTC)
17 years one or more stars and you regard it borderline notability? On what planet do you live? FGS, Misset Horeca is the oldest trade magazin about restaurants in The Netherlands. Research it a bit, and you can see that it has also a paper version, as far as I know for at least 20 years. The blog was used to show that the restaurant closed and lost its last star. De Telegraaf is a national newspaper, the biggest in the country. If the article is that bad, why don't you nominate it for deletion? Night of the Big Wind talk 12:31, 29 December 2011 (UTC)
After chacking it turned out that I was very cautious with Misset Horeca. They celebrate their 60th anniversery in 2012! Every two weeks about 18.000 magazins roll off the presses, for a Dutch trade magazin very much! Night of the Big Wind talk 14:14, 29 December 2011 (UTC)
I don't believe it was central to his opinion, but I can't speak for that editor. What I would like to point out is that the guideline is so worded that all restaurants in the guide are considered inherently notable, whether they receive stars or not. The majority of restaurants in the Michelin guide do not receive stars, according to the article to which you linked above[8]: "...in the Michelin Guide to France 2009, 3,531 restaurants are included, but just 548 received a star. Most of these restaurants -- 449 -- received one-star, 73 received two stars, and 26 received three." ScottyBerg (talk) 22:42, 19 December 2011 (UTC)
Question: what Michelin Guide are you looking in? There are several Guides, for France, The Netherlands, New York, Great Britain and Ireland and a few others. Second question: could you agree with a rewording so only the starred restaurants in the Guides are mentioned (in fact, in such a way dat also high scoring restaurants of other Guides are included.) Night of the Big Wind talk 12:15, 29 December 2011 (UTC)
Scotty has hit the issue on the head, we need to eliminate the references to Michelin in the statement. Ratings are problematic, and we must not use them to establish notability. by eliminating the mention here, that will go a long way to fixing the problem. --Jeremy (blah blah • I did it!) 17:20, 19 December 2011 (UTC)

Subjective break

I would also agree that ScottyBerg has pretty much identified the problem here. If a restaurant is notable, ipso facto it will have been noticed by the wider world. For there not to be any further coverage of the restaurant outside of Red Guide is strongly suggestive of the fact that the restaurant in question isn't actually that significant. Pyrope 18:35, 19 December 2011 (UTC)
In fact it works a bit the other way with my articles: assuming that Michelin starred articles are almost automatically notable (has somebody an exeption for me?), I did not look for other sources. If the community decides that a Michelin star is not enough as evidence, I have to start looking at other sources. And I have no doubt that I will find them for each and every restaurant I have described yet. Night of the Big Wind talk 22:22, 19 December 2011 (UTC)
That is in fact what we are saying: The presence in the guide, or any other guide, and the resulting rating does not establish or confer notability on said facility and that reliable sources do. What we want to see is the elimination of the clause about the Michelin guide from WP:Org to ensure that others do not make the mistake. What we should do is reinstate the discussion about restaurant notability guidelines and hash the issue out there. --Jeremy (blah blah • I did it!) 01:17, 20 December 2011 (UTC)
  • The Guide is a reliable source (as are many other guidebooks). It therefore does contribute to notability (but almost nothing to the "significant coverage" requirements).
  • Having a star in the Guide is a marker or proxy for being notable. That's why it only makes the subject "presumed notable", not "inherently and unquestionably notable". Zero organizations in the history of the world are inherently notable. All of them must eventually produce sources. But there are a few qualities that let us make a convenient guess at whether an organization is likely to be notable. Having a star in the Guide is one of those qualities. We have never yet found a non-notable restaurant with a star. (As for merely being listed, I'd be surprised if very many of them were non-notable, but it's possible, just like it's possible that some Fortune 500 company, Oscar winner, or NYSE-listed publicly traded company will be non-notable in practice.) WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:43, 20 December 2011 (UTC)
The New York Times, The Boston Globe and numerous other sources all meet the standards as reliable sources, but a review from them are not acceptable indicators of being notable because of the inherent subjective nature of a review. Additionally, these sources have at one time or another have produced differing opinions of the same facilities as stated in the Michelin guide article. At best reviews, no matter the source, can only provide verifiability of the subject. I can agree, if I am reading your post correctly, that we can cite them for secondary information within an article. What we are claiming in this discussion is that contributors should not use them as a way of claiming a restaurant was well reviewed by a famous book, therefore it is notable. The removal of this clause would go a long way in fixing that problem. --Jeremy (blah blah • I did it!) 07:19, 20 December 2011 (UTC)
Jeremy, that's simply not true. There's not one word in any notability guideline that says "subjective" independent reliable sources don't count as receiving attention from the world at large. In fact, "subjective" sources are the most valuable indications of notability in certain areas (e.g., artwork). WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:39, 21 December 2011 (UTC)
Restaurant-wise we only have to look at Mzoli's. Which is one of the few articles created by Jimbo Wales. After its creation it generated a debate whether it should be deleted or not and this was picked up by the main stream media and bingo: instant notability. I doubt it would have survived being nominated for deletion if it had been created by any other Wikipedian. It does not seem very remarkable to me based on its description in the article. So my view is that even when the mainstream press is hyping something up we should keep a cool head.SpeakFree (talk)(contribs) 16:30, 22 December 2011 (UTC)
WhatamIdoing, let's not get hung on for semantics. For all intents and purposes, "presumed notable" has been utilized in AfD discussions as identical to "unquestionably notable" or simply "it's notable." Deletion discussions have hinged on that footnote. If it's your position that the Michelin Guide should count no more than other reliable sources, then you should support removal of the mention of Michelin in the footnote. Also, as I've pointed out above, the guideline makes no mention of stars. It states that all restaurants listed in the guide are presumed notable, whether or not they have stars. ScottyBerg (talk) 12:55, 20 December 2011 (UTC)
And can you produce an example of a "merely listed" restaurant that didn't receive publicity merely for being listed? I'm open to the possibility that the wording needs to be tightened up, but simple assertions of non-notability aren't the same as proof. WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:39, 21 December 2011 (UTC)

It doesn't mean a thing if a restaurant has received publicity for being listed. That's considered "trivial coverage" under the guideline. I think it's even sub-trivial because it's little more than corporate public relations and press agentry.

Let's remember what's at issue here. We have a footnote that requires us to assume that a restaurant is notable because it is listed in the Michelin Guide, and the footnote is so worded that it could and probably does include other guidebooks: Fodor, Frommers, Forbes, Lonely Planet and the AAA Guide. That's an end-run around the requirement that any organization be subject to significant coverage in reliable, independent secondary sources.

Remember too that the "depth of coverage of the subject by the source must be considered." How can we consider the depth of coverage when we are precluded from doing so by this "Michelin listing is assumed as notable" footnote? ScottyBerg (talk) 13:37, 21 December 2011 (UTC)

Your assertion that "it doesn't mean a thing if a restaurant has received publicity for being listed" is simply false. If a restaurant gets a feature-length article in a newspaper because of its listing (and that doesn't appear to be unusual), then that feature-length article means quite a lot. A feature-length newspaper article is practically the definition of "significant coverage". "Trivial coverage" means a couple of sentences, or otherwise containing so little information that you can't write much about the subject based on it, not coverage that you personally believe was prompted by some trivial reason. WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:29, 21 December 2011 (UTC)
I didn't have in mind a lengthy feature article. I was thinking of what I was actually seeing as I googled New York restaurants that had received Michelin listings, which were articles mentioning it in passing. ScottyBerg (talk) 21:02, 21 December 2011 (UTC)
The purpose of ORG like any other sub-notability guideline is to assert criteria that, assuming the topic meets them, there will likely be additional sources to help eventually meet the GNG in the future, but require said sources to be found or wait for them to appear. It is, effectively, a temporarily allowance from the GNG. Being listed in the Red Guide seems like such a reasonable case, given the weight that those ratings have on the restaurant industry, regardless if negative or positive; if the restaurant has one or more stars, then likely there are more local sources to go into depth on that. But again, that's all presumption. If a restaurant appears in the Red Guide and within five years no sources appear beyond that, then yes, it may not be notable. --MASEM (t) 14:45, 21 December 2011 (UTC)
Have you ever seen a non-notable Michelin starred restaurant? Night of the Big Wind talk 14:56, 21 December 2011 (UTC)
That is not the point, as Pyrope has stated, it is only an indicator that there is notability as any restaurant that has been well received by critics from any major source will usually get secondary press coverage. However it is that secondary press coverage that establishes the notability and not the review itself. As I have stated in other areas every single restaurant gets reviewed at some point by a reliable source so it becomes a case that reviews are like listings in the phone book, business directories, etc. Reviews themselves, and Michelin is still a review despite how it is regarded, are too subjective and we require objective evidence that the subject has received significant attention from independent sources to support a claim of notability. (per WP:Note) Just because it is in the guide doesn't mean it has been shown that it has received said coverage. As it has been stated elsewhere by others being well reviewed by the guide is an indicator that there is probably proper independent coverage about the facility in other reliable, secondary sources; however unto itself an appearance in the guide, or any other similar source, does not confer immediate notability.
Additionally, the subjective nature of a review and differing opinions between reviewers and guides, makes reviews themselves problematic. As stated in the Michelin guide article, there are cases where well regarded and reviewed eateries received no stars in the Red book despite contrary opinions espoused by reviewers attached to other reliable sources that reviewed the facility (In the case mentioned, The New York Times and Zagat). Again I will state that the guide can be used to support secondary claims within an article, but it does not confer notability as some claim. --Jeremy (blah blah • I did it!) 16:12, 21 December 2011 (UTC)
You are misreading the statement at WP:N. Objective evidence does not require the sources to be objective; it requires that there is, objectively aka without any question, independent sources showing significant coverage (typically secondary, meaning analysis, synthesis, and critiques are involved) of the topic. Reviews and other subjective sources -- as long as they are from a reliable source -- are considered appropriate for this. A restaurant or any other type of establishment that has received multiple reviews from reliable , independent sources will be considered notable, irregardless of what other sources exist. --MASEM (t) 16:32, 21 December 2011 (UTC)
But this footnote makes a Michelin listing dispositive, and that's how it's been interpreted at AfDs, where marginal restaurants have been kept solely on the basis of Michelin, without seriously probing further as required by WP:ORG. See for instance this one[9], where the nominator withdrew the AfD after the footnote was pointed out, and the nominators all cited the Michelin listing as sufficient to establish notability, or this one[10], in which a restaurant was so lacking in notability that it was listed for speedy deletion, which was thwarted on the basis of it being an "awarded restaurant." ScottyBerg (talk) 16:51, 21 December 2011 (UTC)
Let me explain: the GNG (what's stated at WP:N) requires the objective existence of multiple secondary sources for a topic to be presumed notable. We recognize that for some specific areas that is not always immediately possible, and that's why we have sub-notability guidelines (SNGs) like this one, to describe cases where, because a specific criteria is met, there will likely be sources not yet discovered or in the future that will allow the topic to meet the GNG, and thus we presume it notable. A common case is if a previously "unknown" (lacking an article on Wikipedia) person wins the Nobel prize. It's been well established that all Nobel Prize winners will have biographical details in reliable sources along with the impact of their work/effort to earn the Nobel, and therefore we are pretty confident that such winners will meet the GNG given enough time to collect those sources; ergo, we allow the article on that person.
The same logic is being applied here. Being rated in Michelin (which only rates restaurants that meet specific standards) may not be as important as the Nobel, but it is one of the highest honors that a restaurant can receive. Per how I read this, it has been established that a restaurant receiving one or more Michelin stars is likely to have been critically reviewed by other sources or will gain more critical reviews because of getting such a star. Thus, over time, the GNG will be met. Hence, this is said to be a proper criteria for an SNG. Mind you, I personally have some reservations about that fact but I'm going by the consensus that appeared to have been previously established for this criteria that this does occur. If you don't believe this to be the case (That receiving a Michelin will lead to more pre-existing/new reviews), that's a point then to challenge and gain consensus on removing.
And to re-reiterate, GNG and SNGs are all about presumed notability. There may be a lot of secondary sources, but that doesn't mean we believe the topic to be notable. Similarly, while a restaurant may have a Michelin star, if no reviews or additional sources are discovered for it after several years from receiving that star, it's probably not notable as originally thought, and deletion is possible. But when there's a good likelihood that notability can be established in time, we should not be deleting things. Hence, as long as there's consensus that getting a Michelin star will likely end up with more sourcing, then its a valid SNG criteria. --MASEM (t) 17:59, 21 December 2011 (UTC)
But as I've repeatedly pointed out, the footnote does not refer to Michelin stars. It refers to Michelin listings, and is so worded that it can refer to other guidebooks as well - AAA, Frommer, the Forbes/Mobil guide, Lonely Planet. The vast majority of restaurants listed in the Michelin guides do not receive stars. As I've also noted, the significance of a Michelin listing is different in America, where they are rare, than they would be in France, where there are thousands of Michelin-listed restaurants. I think also that you're reading more into the provenance of this footnote than is justified, as the footnote was added without a consensus being established, or any extensive discussion. It was added a few months ago, and only became an issue recently, because of the AfD discussions that I mentioned. ScottyBerg (talk) 20:59, 21 December 2011 (UTC)
If it just a listing, where a good fraction of the entries aren't rated, then this is a problem. Being listed with stars is one thing (given the weight of that star) but lacking any stars, being listed does not make it notable. Was there any discussion about this footnote being added, because SNGs, like the GNG, need global consensus. I'd argue that if this was just added without discussion, it should be removed and a more formal RFC started to determine if its a legitimate criteria. Mind you, I don't know how they choose what to put in the listing, but there may be criteria that Michelin uses that actually does relate to notability here, but looking at the situation from a very high level overview, this doesn't seem to be the case. --MASEM (t) 21:25, 21 December 2011 (UTC)
Well, the language of the footnote couldn't be plainer. It says "listing." No, there was no discussion. It was mentioned on the talk page here but was not noticed until recently, when it became an issue in AfDs. ScottyBerg (talk) 21:31, 21 December 2011 (UTC)
Yeah, that's no real discussion towards consensus. I think even elsewhere (possibly at WT:CSD?) there was discussion about the deletion of a Fortune 500 company where, because they were like a commodities company with no physical product or major influential business practices, their only claim to fame was just being on the F500 list, and deletion was appropriate.
Now as I read the guideline better, I see what is being said is that being in F500 or a Michelin guide counts as "one source" towards notability (its more than a trivial mention), but that's only one source. GNG in general requires multiple sources. A restaurant that has a Michelin listed and, say, two or three other reviews from reliable local sources can be presumed to be notable. A restaurant that only has the Michelin listing cannot be considered notable. The footnote's language is right, but I see what you're saying about being mistaken as allowing the listing as an only source to be used for demonstration of notability. Some language needs to be changed or added to get around that. --MASEM (t) 21:39, 21 December 2011 (UTC)
Yeah, it has definitely been interpreted to mean that a Michelin listing establishes notability. I've argued pretty much what you're saying, but it has not been an accepted interpretation of the rule, and frankly I can understand why my view has been rejected, as the rule literally says "presumed notable." ScottyBerg (talk) 21:46, 21 December 2011 (UTC)
I'd personally have no objection to specifying "being awarded a star" rather than "ever listed", since the goal of that sentence is largely to say that while being on most "top 100" lists is irrelevant, being on some lists is a pretty good hint that there will almost certainly be sources if you do a proper search for them. WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:50, 21 December 2011 (UTC)
I'd suggest that we just take out the language, as Masem suggested, and visit the subject afresh with an RfC. We can present multiple possibilities, including mentioning no guidebooks and mentioning others, such as the AAA Five-Diamond, Mobil, etc. That way we can get a fresh consensus, as this discussion is a bit messy, and also get wider community input. ScottyBerg (talk) 21:53, 21 December 2011 (UTC)
If we go the RfC route, which I think is definitely a good idea, I'd suggest that we let it run its course through January before adding any language. This is the holiday season and many editors are away. ScottyBerg (talk) 21:57, 21 December 2011 (UTC)
If you are referring to the phrase "listed in the Michelin Red Guide" and nothing more, it is possible that you are right. I don't know the Guide by heart. Would you be happy when the phrase is reworked to "the Star and Bib Gourmand listings in the Michelin Red Guide"? Night of the Big Wind talk 22:03, 21 December 2011 (UTC)
I'm not sure who the "you" is in your post, but speaking personally I wouldn't be "happy" with that language at all. My feeling is that the language should be removed entirely, for reasons I'm not going to repeat. But I think that we should commence an RfC, and get broad community input on this, as Masem has suggested. ScottyBerg (talk) 22:08, 21 December 2011 (UTC)
Since the policy was changed without consensus or discussion, the footnote should be removed entirely, as Masem suggested, pending the RfC. However, I'm not going to do that, and I'd respectfully hint that since he brought up the idea, he may want to take the initiative. ScottyBerg (talk) 22:10, 21 December 2011 (UTC)
"Since the policy was changed without consensus or discussion":
  • BRD says editors can change guideline and policy even without discussions. However, if you BRD, and the change is disagreed with, even years later, then reverting it and discussing is the next step. This change was made, based on that discussion, after a whole 20 minutes of opening the topic and with only 2 editors in the thread. That's no where near enough time to tell if the change had consensus, and just because people watch and don't respond doesn't mean that the lack of response is explicit acceptance for that.
  • Starting an RFC is completely within line to decide if that footnote is appropriate or not in this case. --MASEM (t) 23:30, 21 December 2011 (UTC)
I've started one. ScottyBerg (talk) 13:39, 22 December 2011 (UTC)

On the failed AFD of L'Auberge

Yes, and I remember you nominating a restaurant for deletion because it was (amongst other things) a Dutch restaurant with Dutch sources: Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/L'Auberge (restaurant). Night of the Big Wind talk 19:08, 18 December 2011 (UTC)
No, it was "Long-defunct restaurant, only incidental mentions in articles about non-notable chef and in directories. Fails WP:ORG." ScottyBerg (talk) 19:54, 18 December 2011 (UTC)
To quote you: These are all Dutch-language publications, and I have no idea if they are reliable.... Night of the Big Wind talk 20:32, 18 December 2011 (UTC)
That's right, I didn't. And you know what? This hasn't got a darn thing to do with notability standards, so let's put an end to this side-talk. Now. ScottyBerg (talk) 20:40, 18 December 2011 (UTC)
How can you judge over notability standards if you refuse to do your homework and check the supplied references? Night of the Big Wind talk 21:12, 18 December 2011 (UTC)
Night, there's no rule that says people have to research everything in advance. If they're wrong, then people at AFD will tell them that they're wrong. There's no need to keep hassling them for making an honest mistake.
This is true when you can't read the sources named, but it's also true in many other circumstances. Notability is not about the existence of sources written in English, or available online, or named in any given version of an article. It's about whether independent sources have been published, no matter what the language or media or location of those sources. Not everyone realizes the full implications of that standard: "doing your homework" is almost impossible to do perfectly every time. WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:42, 18 December 2011 (UTC)
Interesting, but people pointed me at WP:BEGIN. That counts for everyone, or not? Night of the Big Wind talk 23:05, 18 December 2011 (UTC)
BEGIN (aka BEFORE) is encouraged but not required. In fact, it is extremely unusual for any nominator to scrupulously follow all sixteen numbered pieces of advice there. WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:46, 19 December 2011 (UTC)
LOL, they threatend me with blocks when I would not adhere to it... Night of the Big Wind talk 02:26, 19 December 2011 (UTC)
Were many of the articles you nominated being kept? Were your nominations seen as disruptive or frivolous? If someone is screwing up, we can (and will) make it mandatory for that person. We can and have also prohibited individuals from nominating any articles at all. WhatamIdoing (talk) 05:43, 19 December 2011 (UTC)
That was because you were nominating articles again and again that the most basic search would reveal have multiple reliable sources and since both WP:V and WP:N explicitly are about sources existing, not sources being present in the article, you were wasting lots of user's time with nominations that could not succeed. I actually have a lot of sympathy for the underlying concern: I believe we need to require sourcing to be present in articles and I believe we need a process for deleting article that are unsourced after a call for sources, and the elapse of a designated time period without sourcing being placed, but until the underlying policies are changed, nominations as those you were making were and remain disruptive. AfD is not the place to make this change. The policies that are invoked at AfD are.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 03:17, 21 December 2011 (UTC)

US elementary schools: Inherent notability: for "Blue Ribbon Schools"

Are Blue Ribbon schools by virtue of receiving the award inherently notable? Raymie (t • c) 03:54, 12 December 2011 (UTC)

  • The common outcome of AFDs has been that most elementary schools and middle schools have been redirected to the school district or city or parent organization: "Most elementary (primary) and middle schools that don't source a clear claim to notability are now getting merged or redirected in AfD. Schools that don't meet the standard typically get merged or redirected to the school district that operates them (North America) or the lowest level locality (elsewhere) rather than being completely removed from the encyclopedia." Is "Blue Ribbon" a sufficient "clear claim to notability?" The award shows "high levels of performance or significant improvements" and is considered "the highest honor an American school can achieve" per its article. After Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Kennedy Middle School (Cupertino, California) was redirected following an AFD, at Deletion Review for 4 December 2011, the school's article was reinstated when someone showed that it was once a "Blue Ribbon School" in 1992-93. Having once been a Blue Ribbon school would override GNG. 5200 schools, about 4% of US schools eligible, have been "Blue Ribbon "schools. Is having once achieved this measure sufficient to provide inherent notability? I expect that a school getting this award does typically generate some articles in local newspapers. Edison (talk) 19:02, 7 December 2011 (UTC)
    • Well, those points were raised many times and failed to draw consensus. I think the problem is the underlying desire to get articles for all schools. I don't believe that it is been shown that Blue Ribbon School status is really defining since the criteria overly subjective to start with. Vegaswikian (talk) 20:26, 7 December 2011 (UTC)
    • My understanding of WP:ORG as it applies to primary level schools is that it requires substantial, non-trivial coverage in regional or national/international media. From that perspective, local media is going to make me question how local. To be honest, I imagine that every primary school in my area gets some regional media coverage - as a result of an inspection if nothing else. To be equally as honest I don't see this in very many cases at all making them in any way notable. I have the same feelings about the Blue Ribbon award. By itself my gut feeling is that it doesn't mean a school is notable in any way. The short term media coverage that results doesn't either. More than that - and more than the PR stories that every local school tries to get into the media - and there might be an argument. Caversham Primary School, for example, currently has an article and survived AfD on the basis of the national media coverage of the High Court judicial review regarding entry to the school. Personally I still feel that this is marginal in terms of notability - the event may be just about notable, but more from the pov of Reading Borough Council. But at least it's some form of notability - unlike a Blue Ribbon award. Blue Square Thing (talk) 21:42, 7 December 2011 (UTC)
  • It is absurd that a bureaucratic award bestowed in mass numbers in the United States only is somehow regarded as sufficient to make an end run around the well-established consensus at AFD that all but truly exceptionally noteworthy elementary schools are redirected to the school district or town, while all secondary schools are automatically kept on a per se basis. Carrite (talk) 20:19, 7 December 2011 (UTC)
I completely agree. Coupla things worth noting:
First: I think there's a useful analogy between the notion of "highest honor a school can receive" and the legal meaning of the phrases such "best" and "highest quality" as they are used in advertising, to wit: "best" does not mean (as advertisers hope consumers will assume) "better than any other," but rather means, "No other has been shown to be better." So where, as is almost always the case, there's no agreed-upon way of saying any given product is conclusively better than any other, they can all call themselves "best." Absent any evidence to the contrary, I'd bet dollars to doughnuts the same thing is going on with this "highest honor": there being no agreed-upon ranking of whether the "Blue Ribbon Award" is more, or less, prestigious than the "Cream 'o the Crop Award," or the "Top Teaching Award," or the "Enviable Elementary School Award", anyone can declare any one of the "best."
Second: All sources in the article for the statement of "highest award" are local articles about local schools winning the award -- hardly an unbiased source.
Third: It's not an accident that all these local articles use exactly the same text -- they're working from school press releases, which in turn are no doubt plagiarized (shall we say) from model releases from the Department of Education. But of course, the entity bestowing the award is also nothing like an unbiased source for the award's significance.
The Blue Ribbon is based entirely, it appears, on self-reported information from the school. Let's see an independent, reliable source for the idea that the "Blue Ribbon Award" means much of anything at all, much less a marker of notability.
EEng (talk) 00:47, 8 December 2011 (UTC)
I fail to see how getting the Blue Ribbon award (mentioned above), given out over 5200 times, would give an article inherent notability. That would simply give us ~4500 stubs of otherwise non-notable schools. Tofutwitch11 (TALK) 01:56, 8 December 2011 (UTC)
  • Hi! I'm Raymie, the creator of the DRV. I mainly created the DRV because the result really hinged on whether this proof was found. I'm currently following precedent. I've restored one article that had been redirected (Rhodes Junior High School), but that can be changed back, of course. I also made some category/ref fixes for Arizona schools, because this was poorly documented. I will note that a move could open the floodgates for hundreds of new articles. Raymie (t • c) 22:19, 7 December 2011 (UTC)
Despite the age-ist bias that some editors show (schools attract a lot of attention from students in high school, who naturally feel that their schools are terribly important and that schools for young children are never important), the rules are actually the same for all schools, regardless of subject, the age of the students, or the type of organization operating it: You need to have one source that isn't from the immediate local area. You need to have enough independent sources that you can write a fair, unbiased article. That's it. It happens that the real rules support more articles for schools for younger children (especially middle schools) and fewer articles for high schools (especially small, charter, and/or private schools) than OUTCOMES (which is all about the typical school, not the actual examples in front of you) predicts. WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:01, 8 December 2011 (UTC)
Yes, I am a high schooler, but actually, I have edited my own school article on WP (including declaring my conflict of interest) and cleaned it up. I write some very dry, unbiased articles. Want to read about Walden Grove High School in Sahuarita, Arizona, a new high school that opened in August? Or perhaps Phoenix Indian School (listed on the NRHP), an Arizona institution that was around for a century? Or Desert Edge High School, Arizona's first LEED-certified high school? Those are all in there thanks to me, as are dry stubs like Fredonia High School (Arizona). I just wrote articles on high schools so that AZ had some decent coverage. Along the way, I fixed so many errors that it wasn't funny. Raymie (t • c) 02:09, 8 December 2011 (UTC)
And I appreciate your work. My point is that if you're following precedent, you're following a precedent set largely by high school students who (unlike you) don't care whether the articles are any good or supported by a single independent source. That's where a lot of this nonsense about "automatic" notability for high schools (and "automatic non-notability" for elementary and middle schools) comes from. You must have decent sources. The age of the students or the awards received by the school are irrelevant: all that ultimately matters is the existence of independent sources. WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:20, 10 December 2011 (UTC)
  • I do not believe that being a Blue Ribbon School should constitute inherit notability. It is not such a well-publicized award as to convey such notability. I mean, until I looked up the list of award winners a few minutes ago, I was unaware that my high school had won the award, even though I've been receiving the alumni publication for years, both before and after the award was given. The fact that hundreds of schools win the award each year also tends to detract from the claim that any school that wins it is inherently notable. --Metropolitan90 (talk) 07:19, 8 December 2011 (UTC)
  • I dont think blue ribbon is enough to establish notability. its too common an award, and It seems like a vanity award, to generate publicity or attention.(its received criticism for allowing self review and self nomination, and for favoring wealthy schools). maybe schools with multiple blue ribbons could be considered notable. as an aside, I disagree that high schools need to abide by the same criteria as primary schools. while the schools may not be that notable, their seniors often are, as students in high school are a: sometimes adults with notable accomplishments and b: sometimes regional sports stars. and, of course, people really, really like to know who attended various high schools. I dont think we have the same level of interest in who attended elementary school. perhaps because most children are not developing the signs of future fame at that level, thus is much more trivial than, say high school actors who become hollywood stars.Mercurywoodrose (talk) 07:46, 8 December 2011 (UTC)
  • The original basis for using the blue ribbon designation is a reasonable one, a basis that we use throughout Wikipedia for notability of anything, of being the highest national award. I think it can be justified on the basis of uniformity and consistency with other topics. for example, we use the highest national level throughout athletics, and it gives us as the sole justification many time the 5200 purportedly unjustifiable school articles. Obviously if for a particular topic the highest national level were an award given to 50% of the relevant individuals or bodies, it might not make much sense. But 5% does make sense. Remember, we're talking about notable , not famous. 5% aren't famous--maybe only a few dozen are. But that 5% might be notable is perfectly reasonable. DGG ( talk ) 00:36, 9 December 2011 (UTC)
    Of course, if you don't actually have any independent, reliable sources, then you still can't write an NPOV-compliant article, no matter how many blue ribbons the school has. That's just reality: we need independent sources to write articles. They are an absolutely necessary condition for writing a policy-compliant article. Having a blue ribbon or not is basically irrelevant. WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:20, 10 December 2011 (UTC)
It generall is possible to get 3rd party RSs, which is enough top meet WP:V, an indispensably essential minimum criterion. The usual question is whether the provide substantial coverage, which is relevant for the GNG, if we want to use the GNG in this case. It's our choice. The consensus at WP is still to use the GNG when possible; I take the opposite position, of using it only when there's no other rational criterion. The advantage of adopting my opinion would be to eliminate the otherwise necessary hundreds of thousands of AfDs on schools and many other things to evaluate the nuances of sources in each case DGG ( talk ) 23:35, 10 December 2011 (UTC)
  • A redirect is not a delete. It's not a question of notability, it's a question of sufficient significant information. In general for many US schools we are better served by a section in a school district article, and a redirect. If the section gets too long it can be spun out. Rich Farmbrough, 12:03, 13 December 2011 (UTC).
  • The primary notability guidelines for organizations specifically states that "A company, corporation, organization, school, team, religion, group, product, or service is notable if it has been the subject of significant coverage in secondary sources. Such sources must be reliable, and independent of the subject." The ORG guidelines also state that "No organization is exempt from this requirement, no matter what kind of organization it is." If the organization has received no or very little notice from independent sources, then it is not notable. The guidelines do not include a statement that Blue Ribbon schools are exempt from the guidelines. The common outcomes do not present any information about Blue Ribbon schools being exempt. Rather, the outcomes refer editors back to the ORG guidelines. Retention of school articles based merely on their status as a recipient of a Blue Ribbon Award is not supported in either the general or topical notability guidelines. While the common outcome is to retain Blue Ribbon schools, in my opinion, this outcome violates officially established guidelines. I would like to see more users participate in this discussion. My hope is that this RFC would serve to establish official community consensus to ensure consistency and compliance across the board with the ORG guidelines. Either follow the guidelines or change them. This is a first step. Best regards, Cind.amuse (Cindy) 07:20, 20 December 2011 (UTC)
  • I do not believe that the "Blue Ribbon School" designation is enough to warrant keeping an otherwise non-notable school. I am glad to see that consensus appears to agree. In the future I will reject that argument at AfD discussion. (However, despite objections from a minority of editors like whatamidoing, I DO agree with the consensus that all diploma-granting high schools and degree-awarding colleges are notable and should be kept if verified. My experience is that if you look for significant coverage about a high school, you ALWAYS find it.) --MelanieN (talk) 20:11, 7 January 2012 (UTC)
  • Much like carrite, I feel we should require articles to satisfy the GNG or some similar notability benchmark. I'm not keen to see articles being given a free pass on notability simply because they got some highly subject-specific award (in one country out of many) which is orthogonal to our existing notability requirements. bobrayner (talk) 05:12, 9 January 2012 (UTC)
  • I too would disagree with having a free pass for schools in one country. Especially after reading "The program centers around a self-assessment conducted by the school followed by an establishment and implementation of an improvement plan" in the article here about the programme. That suggests to me that they are getting an award for what the headteacher ought to be doing anyway. Peridon (talk) 14:33, 8 February 2012 (UTC)

WP:CORP1E

I recently nominated an Corp article for AfD that was lacking in notability - Aside from Blogs and the Corporate homepage the only independent reliable sources that I could find were two mentions in the local newspaper (circulation around 12,000) which syndicates much of it's content from a larger regional newspaper (circulation around 90,000) whose editorial standards have been questioned at a national level. During the AfD however a (still small) number of regional news reports and specialist press reports about the demise of the company were put forward as evidence of notability - As I argued there (futilely as I was the only 'Delete vote) we have advice in WP:BLP and WP:BIO that explains why policies such as WP:NOT#NEWS, WP:WNPOV, WP:OR, etc and Guidelines such as WP:EVENT strongly emphasise we should not create articles about non-notable individuals who play a notable part in one event - I would like to add similar advice to WP:CORP probably adapted directly from WP:BLP1E that explains why these policies also strongly emphasise we should not create articles about non-notable companies/organisations who play a notable part in one event (or are the subject of that one event such as a closure) what does the community think? Stuart.Jamieson (talk) 22:24, 8 February 2012 (UTC)

Agree... WP:ONEEVENT should apply to organizations as well as individuals. If the only thing that a company/organization is known for is its involvement in a single event, it is more appropriate to mention the corporation/organization in the article on the event. Blueboar (talk) 22:42, 8 February 2012 (UTC)
Agree as well, though using common sense that some events will highlight a company that never had an article before and/or may easily create new articles about that company in the future, if the event has significant repercussions across an area. A hypothetical example, the company that ran that cruise liner that capsized, Costa Crociere, may not have had an article before the event, but the event certainly highlighted the company and likely showed there's sources from the past to qualify for a full article (however, in reality, that company had an article since 2007). --MASEM (t) 23:15, 8 February 2012 (UTC)

Should Michelin Guide restaurant listings be presumed as notable?

The guideline contains the following footnote, which was inserted in March 2011 without discussion:

Inclusion in "best of", "top 100", and similar lists generally does not count towards notability, unless the list itself is so notable that each entry can be presumed notable. Examples of the latter include the Fortune 500 or a Michelin Guide to restaurants.

Some editors have expressed concern that this footnote has led to articles about run-of-the-mill restaurants that do not meet the guideline's requirement for significant coverage in reliable, independent secondary sources, as well as restaurants for which there was no depth of coverage.

The guideline's language ("examples of the latter include") is broad enough to incorporate other restaurant guide listings (AAA Five Diamonds, the Forbes Travel Guide (formerly Mobil Travel Guide), Fodor, Frommer and Lonely Planet, but none of these are specifically mentioned, which might be construed as Eurocentric and not giving restaurants prominently mentioned in those guides, but not in Michelin, unfair treatment. Or it might be an argument for making no mention of guidebooks at all.

Among the possibilities discussed are:

  • Revise the wording so that it mentions only restaurants with at least one Michelin star or Bib Gourmand (good value for money) status, or perhaps two or three stars, as presumed notable.
  • Revise the wording so that other guidebooks are mentioned, so as to avoid Eurocentrism and not give Michelin-listed or -rated restaurants, whose criteria have been widely disputed, a special advantage on Wikipedia.
  • Remove the mention of Michelin entirely from the footnote, and make no mention of any other restaurant guidebook.

--ScottyBerg (talk) 13:38, 22 December 2011 (UTC)

  • There's a somewhat larger issue and not just on the restaurant side: One of the problem that I see when I read the existing line (and why I suggested the RFC) is this: A statement like "If businesses listed in a specific guide are typically notable by the GNG alone, then we can presume any business listed in the guide is notable as well." is fine in of itself. The problem are the examples: Fortune 500 companies are not always notable since the metric for being on the list is how much money the company processes, meaning that several securities firms that have no real end product or business approach are listed, but these companies aren't assuredly notable. Similarly, the Michelin guide, while listing restaurants with star ratings (which is an aspect of notability) also lists other restaurants with no rating, and there's again no assurances that these non-starred restaurants are notable. When I try to think of what could be replacement examples, I'm at a loss for any case where every entry in the guide is assuredly notable, but that doesn't mean there exist a good example.
  • If a good example(s) can be found, then the line should be kept with these examples. If there are no valid examples, then the line should be struck completely. Now whether there needs to be something along the idea of Michelin stars or the like, that's a separate point of consideration. --MASEM (t) 14:26, 22 December 2011 (UTC)
ScottyBerg may be mistaken on Michelin stars (which I agree would likely be criteria indicating notability) but this is specifically about the Michelin guide which includes both starred and unstarred businesses. In relation to that, Scottyberg has a completely appropriate point, and that's what we need to focus on, not the editor's own agenda. --MASEM (t) 15:19, 22 December 2011 (UTC)
I think that the the wording of the sentence in question by definition makes it correct, even if the logic at first glance appears circular. It basically says that if the guide has a track record where all of it's listings can achive wp:notability by other means, then it is a pretty good indicator of notability. There also appears here to be the confluence of the wording and at least one person here who has said that they AFD articles they really haven't looked closely at, and use a "when in doubt, AFD it" approach. I think that listing in one of the enumerated guides should at least force those persons to look further into the particular case and list their findings that the restaurant doesn't appear to be notable before AFD'ing or deleting.
Possibly add a qualifier: "unless a more thorough review indicates othersise" ?North8000 (talk) 15:23, 22 December 2011 (UTC)
See my first comment, as I agree that the general statement with no examples - that appearing within a guide where most entries have been shown to meet the GNG is a presumption of notability - is logically correct and follows from most other SNGs. The issue is that when it comes to identifying examples, the F500 and Michelin Guide are bad ones, and for the life of me I can't think of suitable replacement ones. In other words, guides are usually so broad in their coverage with lax inclusion measures that while the statement is logical, there are no cases where that actually exists. --MASEM (t) 16:21, 22 December 2011 (UTC)
I don't disagree. I've not seen or used those guides. I just randomly wander when I travel. :-) North8000 (talk) 17:51, 22 December 2011 (UTC)
  • Entries in reputable guides such as the Michelin one are prima facie evidence of notability provided that they are independent. Guides which take paid entries would not be suitable for our purpose because they are promotional in nature. The Michelin guides have their critics but seem to be sufficiently independent for our purpose. So, the basic answer to the RfC question is Yes. Warden (talk) 18:44, 22 December 2011 (UTC)
Can you please explain the inclusion metrics that Michelin uses for their guides? Clearly, when they give a restaurant one or more stars, they are listed, and there's a certain weight in the industry on those stars (eg: there will likely be more reviews due to gaining those stars), but what about entries without stars? Why are they included and what evidence to notability does that give? Will the GNG ultimately be met just because it was listed in Michelin? --MASEM (t) 18:52, 22 December 2011 (UTC)
Does it matter? So long as 100% of the restaurants listed in the Guide that we've actually checked have proven to be notable upon thorough inspection, does it really matter how the Guide chooses what to list?
We're not looking for "inherent" notability, like "this is so important that it's obviously notable even if nobody has ever written about it". We're looking for a shortcut to guessing whether a given restaurant should be presumed notable. We presume that Oscar winners are notable, because so far, when we've checked, every single one of them has proven to be notable. We equally presume that Fortune 500 companies are notable, because so far, when we've checked, every single one of them has proven to be notable. We are equally presuming that Michelin-listed restaurants are notable, because so far, when we've checked, every single one of them has proven to be notable. That doesn't mean that we couldn't have an Oscar winner, a Fortune 500 company, or a Michelin restaurant turn up tomorrow that is non-notable, but so far, we haven't ever seen one that wasn't, so it makes a quick shortcut towards an initial guess at notability.
For all I care, the Guide could be throwing darts at a map. What matters is not how they select restaurants. What matters is whether their selection has a very strong correlation with the existence of multiple, in-depth independent reliable sources—and it does. WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:30, 24 December 2011 (UTC)
The Michelin guides include more than just restaurants given Michelin stars, and I believe from what I've read that there are restaurants, not given stars but in the guide, that are not otherwise notable. But when they are given a star or more, then they are. --MASEM (t) 00:43, 24 December 2011 (UTC)
Have an example in mind? Because so far, whenever we've checked, we've been able to demonstrate notability for every single restaurant listed. (Unlike many guides, they don't list every place that they investigate: "Establishments that Michelin deems unworthy of a visit are not included in the guide.") We've had a few vague, hand-waving assertions that some listed restaurants might not be notable... but zero examples of non-notable listed restaurants have been forthcoming. If it does list non-notable restaurants, we need some proof, not just gut feelings. WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:45, 26 December 2011 (UTC)
Some have claimed that the Michelin guides in Europe are far more inclusive than the US guides. I don't have examples to compare against, but that's a completely fair point if there actually is that difference. --MASEM (t) 22:06, 26 December 2011 (UTC)
  • The footnote is OK. It may be specified that the only restaurants with stars should be assumed notable, but I'm not sure if this change is really needed. In any case the notability of the restaurant will be decided on per-restaurant basis. What is more important, is that by making the footnote more exact we would make it less useful for the guideline. — Dmitrij D. Czarkoff (talk) 07:01, 23 December 2011 (UTC)
  • I wouldn't mind tightening up the language to mention starred restaurants, because what we're trying to communicate is the concept of a group that obviously (to anyone who's familiar with the subject area) has an overwhelming number of independent sources available, and the top tier is more obvious that way. But I think it's technically correct as it stands, because (despite repeated requests) nobody's yet been able to produce an example of a non-notable restaurant that is "only" listed. The closest we've come, apparently, is Scotty complaining that sometimes the sources aren't written in English. WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:30, 24 December 2011 (UTC)
  • Eliminate the mention of the guide and any other similar source. Any form of restaurant review from any source are problematic because of several reasons:
    • Specifically with Michelin, the guide has problems which are clearly stated in the Michelin guide article.
    • The reviews are subjective, not objective. They are an opinion of the individual who is performing the review. This is not an opinion like found in an op/ed piece in a newspaper which is researched and cites facts but a personal opinion of whether the reviewer likes the food.
    • The reviewing source has no defined metric that can be independently verified and confirmed. There are some items that can be confirmed, but food not so much. Yes there are obvious things such as cleanliness that can be commented on, but those are only snapshots of that one visit. Taste is different, so...
    • Restaurant reviews are based on a biological function that differs from individual to individual, taste. This function can be affected by the mood of the individual, smoking, drinking and the physical state of the reviewer (e.g. a head cold can screw up taste due to sinus congestion). Further the capability of taste can differ from one individual to another.
    • There are different cultural takes on food and what is considered good, quality cuisine. This cultural bias can effect the reviewer and taint the review, even if it unintentional.

For all of these reasons, I say wee need to eliminate the clause. --Jeremy (blah blah • I did it!) 16:57, 28 December 2011 (UTC)

Be aware: Subjective reviews are generally considered as valid sources for demonstrating notability, as long as the review is from a known reliable expert source in said field and considered independent. Notability does not require sources to be objective. That's not dismissing the first part of your claim that there may be problems with the guide towards its reliability and independence, but being a subjective source is absolutely not a reason to dismiss the guide. --MASEM (t) 17:11, 28 December 2011 (UTC)
It would be a different case as the Michelin Guide was based on reviews of the public. Those reviews are often based on personal preferences, bad mood, head colds, bias or plain falsified (see: A review issued 20 years after the restaurant closed) But the more quality Guides (a.o. Michelin, GaultMillau) work with professional inspectors. And every restaurant will be visited by several different inspectors. Individual preferences are unlikely to weigh in.
Give me a Guide with the same status as the Michelin Guide in Europe, but specialized in hamburgers & hotdogs, and I would have not problem with adding it. The same with guides that specialize in the Mexican, Spanish, Mandarin, Thai, Turkish or what so ever kitchen. If they are just as reliable as the Michelin, they are welcome. The fact that the Michelin does not rank hotdogstands or McDonalds as cuisine, is not a reason to degrade it as unreliable. Wikipedia is already suffering from a pro-American bias, please don't make it worse. Night of the Big Wind talk 17:28, 28 December 2011 (UTC)
Jeremy, I get the impression that you don't actually know anything about the Guide. So here's what one reliable source says on the subject of your belief that it's just "a personal opinion of whether the reviewer likes the food":
"I asked her what she liked about it.
“It’s not really a ‘like’ and a ‘not like,’ ” she said. “It’s an analysis. You’re eating it and you’re looking for the quality of the products. At this level, they have to be top quality. You’re looking at ‘Was every single element prepared exactly perfectly, technically correct?’ And then you’re looking at the creativity. Did it work? Did the balance of ingredients work? Was there good texture? Did everything come together? Did something overpower something else? Did something not work with something else?"
Op-eds, by contrast, aren't required to do any sort of research. They're supposed to be just somebody's opinion, and many times they include provably wrong "facts" or mere speculation (see, e.g., practically every op-ed on the subject of the current economic situation or the next Republican presidential candidate). But even an op-ed shows that the "world at large" is paying attention to the subject, which is all we need for a notability challenge. WhatamIdoing (talk) 07:24, 4 January 2012 (UTC)
  • Eliminate the clause. Treat guides like any other sources; if a restaurant has significant coverage (not just a listing) in an important guide, that counts toward notability, but nothing is automatic. Inclusion in a list counts for nothing. Dicklyon (talk) 23:06, 8 January 2012 (UTC)

Biased RFC question

You know, Scotty, your new assertions that this footnote was added "without discussion" is beginning to strike me as a deliberate, manipulative lie, and that's not making me happy. You're perfectly aware of the discussion about its addition, which has been linked repeatedly by you, in comments in which you acknowledge that it actually was "mentioned on the talk page" in a discussion. I agree with your prior comments that it was added "without extensive discussion" and "after a brief discussion" (emphasis added) , but to say now, in a section intended to attract attention from people who haven't followed your previous admissions that a discussion did happen, that it was added "without discussion" is simply false. A deliberate, demonstrable falsehood like this cannot possibly qualify as a "neutral" statement of the dispute that WP:RFC requires. I suggest that you promptly figure out a way to re-word the question. WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:29, 22 December 2011 (UTC)
I've added "substantial." I think it's interesting how defenders of the current language are intent on focusing on everything but the content of the footnote, and are resorting to baiting and personal attacks. ScottyBerg (talk) 16:34, 22 December 2011 (UTC)
One editor having a question, followed by a second editor's response and then subsequent change to the guideline 20 minutes later is by no means "a discussion" when it comes to establishing consensus. He's completely fair in challenging this on that aspect alone, and kudos for not actually disrupting the guideline page by reverting it before starting discussion. --MASEM (t) 16:43, 22 December 2011 (UTC)
Thanks, and I also wanted to note that this impugning of my motives is really pretty silly. I encountered one new article on a WP:MILL restaurant while recent-changes patrolling, and put a notability tag on it. That doesn't put me on an "anti-Michelin crusade." There are definitely passions stirred up by this trivial anomaly in the notability guidelines, but certainly not on my part. One editor was blocked for harassing and attacking me on this very issue. ScottyBerg (talk) 16:49, 22 December 2011 (UTC)
If you bluntly ignore TWO Michelin stars and AfD the article as not-notable after a few extra sources were added just because they were in Dutch... well, to put it mildly, it throws a very strange light on this. Night of the Big Wind talk 20:17, 22 December 2011 (UTC)
Since you were the editor who was blocked, it sheds a not-so-strange light on your vitriol. Nobody "ignored" anything. Even though this restaurant had two Michelin stars, it received only incidental mention in Dutch publications, in articles mainly focusing on the chef. The fact that this totally run-of-the-mill restaurant, operated by a non-notable chef, received two Michelin stars is actually a pretty good example of the problem with using Michelin stars, even two Michelin stars, as an assumption of notability. I am at a loss to understand why you keep citing this AfD, as it illustrates why the footnote should be removed. As I pointed out earlier, Wikipedia is not a guide to fine dining. I'm sure this restaurant served fine food. But we don't care if restaurants serve fine food. They can serve garbage for all we care. A restaurant can serve fine food but still not warrant a Wikipedia article because it does not receive coverage in multiple, independent, reliable sources. It is not our mission to publicize Michelin-rated restaurants, dead and alive, meritorious as they all may be and have been. ScottyBerg (talk) 21:14, 22 December 2011 (UTC)
Yep, still ignoring the whole discussion. But if you want to start warring again, have your go. You won't bait me this time. Maybe you should write some articles before burning down articles of others. Night of the Big Wind talk 21:39, 22 December 2011 (UTC)
It's a bit weird that you state that the articles (from two national newspapers) focussed on the chef yet maintain that he is still non-notable. That sounds a bit like doublethink to me, holding two contradictory statements as true at the same time. SpeakFree (talk)(contribs) 22:31, 22 December 2011 (UTC)
It doesn't matter what happened on that past AFD or what ScottyBerg's input to that was. That's not the question being asked, and so this should be dropped. If you think that ScottyBerg's initiation of this RFC was in bad faith, be aware that I agree on the assessment that the lines in question do not match with the general standard for notability and would have likely started the RFC to ask if they are appropriate. So I suggest dropping the accusations at ScottyBerg and focus on the discussion in good faith. --MASEM (t) 22:57, 22 December 2011 (UTC)
SpeakFree, there is even less of substance available on the head chef of that restaurant than there is on that totally obscure, long-defunct establishment. We don't even know if he is alive or dead! That, unfortunately, is the problem with this footnote. Suddenly a completely obscure chef becomes "notable" because he worked at two restaurants that had Michelin stars. As for L'Auberge, we don't even know what kind of food it served! What were its signature dishes? Perhaps the food was French, based on the name. Hell, maybe it was Creole, though I admit that that's unlikely as this restaurant was in a small town in the Netherlands. Maybe he just liked French names. All we know is that this restaurant existed, that two chefs worked there, and that it went out of business. If you can't state why a particular restaurant is noteworthy beyond the fact that some anonymous editors at the Michelin Guide liked it, I don't see how anyone can possibly claim that a Wikipedia article is warranted. I'm really amazed that we're having this discussion at all. ScottyBerg (talk) 00:08, 23 December 2011 (UTC)
We don't know when Jack the Ripper, Amelia Earhart and Lord Lucan died but I will rest that case. All I'll note is that I don't like the fact that every tidbit that happened in the 2000s/2010s is notable e.g. Murder of Deriek Crouse but things which happened before we had broadband internet connections are somehow less-notable because there isn't an abundance of online sources available. SpeakFree (talk)(contribs) 00:42, 23 December 2011 (UTC)
If the chef of that restaurant vanished over the Pacific, or murdered people in the basement of that restaurant, we might have something more to say about that restaurant other than the fact that it existed. But you know, in all seriousness, you've actually, unintentionally, raised a valid point. What we're seeing are articles being created based on the fact that at one point they were rated by Michelin. The actual Michelin Guide is not the source for the articles, as evidenced by the fact that we aren't told anything about these restaurants. Not their address, not their cuisine or anything. Instead we have articles sourced to online listings indicating that at one point the restaurants received recognition from Michelin. The Guide is not even being used as a source. We just know that at one point the restaurant was mentioned in that source. That exemplifies the sheer inanity of this footnote. ScottyBerg (talk) 00:57, 23 December 2011 (UTC)
You try to convince people that you are not on a anti-Michelin-crusade, but on the other hand you keep attacking more or less everything related to the Michelin Guide. Why should I go to my library and order all Michelin Guides from 1957 to check them, when somebody else has summerized them already in 5-year periods? Most likely that would not help a thing, because you will denounce the sources because they are Dutch and not online. Even if your concern is sincere, your timing is so remarkable that I do not believe that you acted in good faith. The community defeated your AfD against L'Auberge, maybe on the grounds of the footnote, and suddenly, just after the defeat, you had a problem with the footnote. Remarkable. I suggested a rewrite of the sentence, but you just wanted the Michelin Guide out of it, full stop. No attempt to make a compromize from your side. I do not regard you attacks on the Michelin Guide as in the best interest of Wikipedia. Challenging the sentence under discussion could have done in a more cooperative style! Night of the Big Wind talk 01:17, 24 December 2011 (UTC)
I haven't seen attacks on the Michelin guide, only on it's reliability of conferring wp:notability, which I don't imagine is in their mission statement` or corporate objectives. North8000 (talk) 01:38, 24 December 2011 (UTC)
I've removed "substantial" per Masem's comment, and in reviewing the talk page discussion, which contained absolutely no discussion on this point, which we are now discussing (when not being sidetracked by this kind of silliness). ScottyBerg (talk) 16:54, 22 December 2011 (UTC)

Suggestion

  • In my opinion, the line should be tweaked a bit. I believe further clarification needs to be made. Possibly stating:
"Inclusion in "best of", "top 100", and similar lists is not considered important or significant, unless the list itself is so notable that each entry can be presumed notable. Examples of the latter include the Fortune 500 or a Michelin Guide to restaurants. Inclusion within these lists does not forgo the requirement for significant coverage in reliable, independent secondary sources, but is sufficient to forgo deletion in accordance with the A7 criteria for speedy deletion."
It is clear that the notability guidelines for organizations state that notability is made through significant coverage in reliable, independent secondary sources. Merely being listed among the Fortune 500 or the Michelin Guide does not provide leeway for automatic notability, void of the requirement for significant coverage in reliable, independent secondary sources. It is merely an indicator that the subject may be notable/significant/important, bypassing deletion in accordance with the A7 criteria for speedy deletion. (As a side note, I think it would be appropriate to add Billboard charts among the examples provided.) Just my two cents. Best regards, Cind.amuse (Cindy) 18:57, 7 January 2012 (UTC)
Ow goodie! That is is difficult sentence you propose. I would suggest to tweak it as "Inclusion in "best of", "top 100", and similar lists generally does not count towards notability, unless the list itself is so notable that each entry can be presumed notable. Examples of the latter include the Fortune 500 or a Michelin Guide to starred restaurants. Even then, the normal rules of notability and sourcing still apply."
Instead of giving a very limited number of examples, the second sentence could also be replaced by a sentence like "For examples of such lists, see ...". The article containing the list should be fully protected, to avoid trouble. Night of the Big Wind talk 19:45, 7 January 2012 (UTC)
I think that is an excellent improvement, it avoids the problems of its starred, therefore notable... that arose in discussions. --Jeremy (blah blah • I did it!) 19:54, 7 January 2012 (UTC)
Not necessarily, Jeremy! Option 1 is now "a Michelin Guide to starred restaurants", while option 2 will move the list of important lists to another page. That new page is still a part of the notability guidelines, but it gives room to a wider list of important lists. Including the Fortune 500 and Michelin Guide, of course. Night of the Big Wind talk 22:00, 7 January 2012 (UTC)
Jeremy is correct that being listed does not cause a restaurant to be notable, just like receiving an Oscar award or an Olympic medal does not cause an actor or athlete to be notable.
What makes a subject notable is independent sources plus compliance with WP:NOT plus editorial judgment. Some sorts of awards (like a Michelin listing) are useful as quick rules of thumb for notability, because there is a strong association between winning awards and being notable. However, this is always a matter of correlation, not causation, and it may be disproven in any given case. All subjects ultimately require verifiable evidence that the world at large has chosen to pay attention to them. There are no exceptions to this requirement—in the end. The purpose of these examples is to save editors time by focusing their deletion efforts on candidates that are likely not to be notable rather than those that are highly likely to be notable. WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:59, 11 January 2012 (UTC)
As you say, Jeremy, its starred, therefore notable... is indeed not the case. It is more Its starred, therefore you can safely assume its notable...' On a lighter note: The Gourmand World Cookbook Awards named the 2006 Michelin Guide New York City the Best in the World in the Restaurant Guide category, an especially sweet win as it's Michelin's first guide covering the United States. ([13]) Night of the Big Wind talk 20:24, 13 January 2012 (UTC)

Conclusion

Now the RfC-period has expired, what is now exactly the conclusion? A stale or a minor rewrite? I do not see much support for a blunt removal. Night of the Big Wind talk 16:03, 21 January 2012 (UTC)

In late, but I support the inclusion of the clause. SilverserenC 18:42, 21 January 2012 (UTC)

I believe the result of the discussion is a small rewrite to the following:

Inclusion in "best of", "top 100", and similar lists generally does not count towards notability. However, the inclusion within more notable lists, examples include the Fortune 500 or the Michelin Guide to restaurants, are good indicators of such. Additional citations to reliable sources which show significant coverage in independent media will be needed to forgo deletion in accordance with the A7 criteria for speedy deletion.

This deals with the issue I initially brought up and does give weight to these lists. I believe this is a good compromise between those such as myself who believe inclusion in such documents doesn't confer notability and those who feel inclusion automatically gives the subject notability. I await your comments. --Jeremy (blah blah • I did it!) 06:02, 13 February 2012 (UTC)

If it says "citations to reliable sources which show significant coverage in independent media" then it is totally pointless. If it has that then it meets the General Notability Guideline, and thus everything else is irrelevant. I oppose adding such nonsense. Remember, it has to meet the GNG or the secondary guidelines, not both. Dream Focus 07:08, 13 February 2012 (UTC)

Nah, you should know that Jeremy has a kind of grudge against the Michelin Guide I suggest to take Cindy's text: "Inclusion in "best of", "top 100", and similar lists is not considered important or significant, unless the list itself is so notable that each entry can be presumed notable. Examples of the latter include the Fortune 500 or a Michelin Guide to restaurants. Inclusion within these lists does not forgo the requirement for significant coverage in reliable, independent secondary sources, but is sufficient to forgo deletion in accordance with the A7 criteria for speedy deletion." Not perfect, but much better than Jeremys suggestion or the present text. Night of the Big Wind talk 04:22, 17 February 2012 (UTC)
Better then "Michelin Guide to restaurants" would be "Michelin Guide to starred restaurants". Night of the Big Wind talk 15:08, 23 February 2012 (UTC)

I'm curious why routine restaurant reviews is included there with the rest.

Last June someone added in this bit [14] about "routine restaurant reviews". If a city has millions of people in its metropolitan area, wouldn't the reviews restaurants get count as notable? Not everyone gets a review. Aren't films considered notable if they get reviews in major newspapers? This doesn't fit with the rest. Its not just a press release from a politician, a sports team, or whatnot. A complete review should meet the "depth of coverage" requirement. Anyone object to me removing that bit? Dream Focus 01:55, 10 February 2012 (UTC)

I agree that it seems misplaced. Simple notices, announcements and inclusion in lists are easy to see as routine, but a review? That requires an analytic judgement by a professional critic, so I can't see how it can be deemed routine. I have tagged it as requiring explanation. Diego (talk) 00:17, 11 February 2012 (UTC)
I think the reason has to do with objections to reviews from local small town papers, more than those in major news outlets. Even an extensive write up of a local small town restaurant in a local paper is not enough to claim that the local restaurant is notable... while an extensive write up of the same local restaurant in the New York Times might be. This relates to something we have been discussing above... the extent of coverage... the broader the coverage (either through multiple sources covering a broad area or a single source with a broad coverage) the more notable the subject is. Blueboar (talk) 00:33, 11 February 2012 (UTC)

I disagree with your removal, the discussion is too short and does not have enough depth to just remove the section with only three brief comments. Further, I believe it should be kept, and am restoring the statement until a better consensus can be developed. --Jeremy (blah blah • I did it!) 20:20, 11 February 2012 (UTC)

We all listed our specific reasons why it shouldn't be there. Why exactly do you wish it to be in the article? What purpose does it serve? Dream Focus 20:45, 11 February 2012 (UTC)
Restaurant reviews clearly fall under WP:Routine - every restaurant is reviewed at sometime by local publications. They are pedestrian, everyday human interest things just like that found at the end of newscasts and such. It doesn't matter if it is the East Over Shoe Gazette or the New York Times, reviews are not signs of notability of an organization. Too often, contributors use restaurant reviews to claim an restaurant is notable without any other valid sources just because the name appeared in print. Reviews can be used to establish verifiability, and can be used in the article to confirm information in an article such as reception and related types of data. --Jeremy (blah blah • I did it!) 05:57, 12 February 2012 (UTC)
Not every restaurant gets reviewed. In a small town, perhaps, but not in a metropolitan area with millions of people in it. Every film that gets to the mainstream theaters on the other hand, does get a review, no matter how awful it is, in every major newspaper about. Dream Focus 06:56, 12 February 2012 (UTC)
Actually, yes they do. It may be part of a "Local" or "Neighborhoods" section or be in the Sunday Magazine in the big regional paper and it may be awhile before it happens but almost every place that serves food in a major area will get a visit for the big regional paper. The difference between a small local paper and a big regional is the amount of work they can dedicate to the review. With the big regional papers the bigger, flashier place will get a bigger, flashier review posted on the front page of their lifestyles section while the smaller place may just get a quick few sentences buried deeper in the back of the section, but it will be there. Trust me, I have been working in the restaurant field for 30 years now, this is how these thing work. --Jeremy (blah blah • I did it!) 10:31, 12 February 2012 (UTC)
Given that "notability" is "being noted by several reliable sources", I fail to see how reviews by reliable sources are not signs of the notability of a restaurant. Diego (talk) 10:40, 13 February 2012 (UTC)
Would someone explain the "clear" part of "this is clearly routine coverage"? Restaurant reviews clearly satisfy the wp:Reliable Sources under Wikipedia:NEWSORG and thus are valid to establish notability under WP:GNG. The only reason I have seen opposing reviews is that "they would allow for lots of restaurant articles, and this is bad". So on the one hand we have a reason to use reviews based on the core Notability policy, and on the other hand we have an argument to exclude them based on an WP:IDONTLIKEIT argument but not based on policy. So would you care to explain again why "being noted by a professional reviewer" is not a form of "being noted" and thus should not count towards notability? (You may want to read WP:Routine again, as it's specific about events and doesn't say anything about restaurants). Diego (talk) 10:21, 13 February 2012 (UTC)
It is not the reliability of the source, it is the nature of the coverage. Everyday coverage of routine events does not establish notability. Yes the paper maybe a reliable source, but the nature of the article is uneventful and does not qualify as significant coverage because it doesn't establish a presumption that the subject is suitable for inclusion as required in WP:Note. What we're saying is that the claim "it appeared in a reliable source, therefore it is notable!" is not true. Also, your argument that the passage in WP:Routine doesn't mention reviews is spurious; it clearly defines what routine coverage means so we do not have to specify every possible example. Further the reviewing of a movie or restaurant is an event by definition and it happens every day, in every community across the globe. So I ask you how can the publishing of a review be anything other than routine?
Please stop looking at the letter of the policy and look at the spirit of the policy. --Jeremy (blah blah • I did it!) 12:09, 13 February 2012 (UTC)
At last we're onto something: that's where I wanted to go. Fully dismissing a source because it is a restaurant review or because it is a local source is also looking at the letter of a guideline and not its spirit. The essence of WP:N is that coverage must be significant, but I've yet to see someone making a convincing case why a professional, in-depth review can not be deemed significant, ever. But there are reasons why it can be.
Reading WP:Routine makes it clear that it only applies to sources that are mostly based on raw data (sports news and results, logs of events), tied to commercial venues (film premiers and press conferences) or of industry-wide recognized low or trivial quality and verifiability (tabloids and gossip), i.e. ways to avoid Wikipedia:INDISCRIMINATE data dumps. Critical reviews on the other hand are supposed to include a critical assessment on the merits of the restaurant that is to be conducted in the most objective way. This is why reviews are regularly used through Wikipedia to create articles for books, films, music and artists; I find no reason why restaurant reviews should be different.
What I oppose is blanket assertion that all reviews by their nature are never to be used for notability. Any sentence included to that end in guidelines should be heavily qualified to indicate that this is only true for really trivial, context-less and content-less two-paragraph kind of reviews. A collection of article-long reviews that discuss the restaurant in detail with its highlights and shortcomings is enough to write an informative article that is not a summary-only description nor a listing of statistics. Given that notability does not necessarily depend on things like fame, importance or popularity, it's OK to create articles for small restaurants as long as they have enough critical commentary.
I would be OK to include a disclaimer like the one at Notability (books): "Some of these works should contain sufficient critical commentary to allow the article to grow past a simple menu summary. This excludes media re-prints of press releases, flap copy, or other publications where the owner, public relations or other self-interested parties advertise or speak about the restaurant." But the current wording ("routine restaurant reviews, [further explanation needed]") is simply unacceptable. Diego (talk) 13:11, 13 February 2012 (UTC)

Jeremy's comments are the only ones which seem rooted in the realities both of the working press and of the restaurant business. Any restaurant which has been in business for a significant period of time will garner their share of these routine reviews; but none of that makes them notable in the way that an official or a town is notable. The truly notable ones will be chronicled in books and magazines; but the daily press grinds these out to draw readers and advertisers, not to note what matters to history. --Orange Mike | Talk 14:59, 13 February 2012 (UTC)

Diego has hit a point about the difference between critical and routine reviews. A true critical review is significantly different than those I have been railing against (Thank you expository writing 15!). My main point has been all along that the routine reviews do not provide the notability that Wikipedia requires. The problem we are facing here is one that is common to most people and has been witnessed before, most contributors cannot tell the difference between the two. A true critical review is an examination of a subject and is an article about the subject. Additionally, the same contributors often confuse a reviewer for a critic and assume the two are the same. I have no issue with a critical review of a subject, the issue I have is where a contributor takes the routine "we ate here and liked it" reviews that appear in every publication from the East Overshoe Gazette to the New York Times and claims notability. An article written by a James Beard fellow on Mario Batale's latest venue that compares the food to his other operations and rates it against similar offerings is significantly different than the ones I have seen used in keep arguments in several AfD discussions that are two line blurbs stating the venue opened in x and serves y.
The real issue is one where contributors will transfer the reliability and notability of the source printing the review onto the subject of the review, or as I have repeatedly described it as "Big Paper in Big City printed it, therefore it is notable!" This is a problem as I see it. If you take a look at my proposal above, you will see that I have tried to address the concerns between the two forms of reviews. --Jeremy (blah blah • I did it!) 18:34, 13 February 2012 (UTC)
Bingo! For the "not routine reviews" criterion to be encoded into policy, you have to find a reasonable definition of what is and is not routine, in a way that doesn't exclude reviews that are truly significant. It's not an easy task because the notability policy as it is written is not really about the relevance of a topic, in the same way that verifiability is not about truth. The current community-wide consensus for WP:N is that the relevance of a topic is not to be decided by editors but outsourced to reliable sources; therefore any wide coverage is taken as evidence that the topic has been "noted" by independent writers, and therefore "notable". If you want to exclude some reviews, you'll have to find a way to describe them in terms of the only safeguard that WP:N provides - that the coverage has to be significant (whatever that means), and also in a way that in-depth critics are not excluded. As I said, it will be difficult to find such criteria, but I don't think it's impossible to find a reasonable compromise. Later I will try to elaborate on how it think this consensus could be outlined. Be aware, though, that my view of those reviews that lie between "world-class critic" and "routine" will surely be more aligned to inclusion than yours. Diego (talk) 21:56, 13 February 2012 (UTC)

Criteria for significance of restaurant reviews

There has been a recent debate about including restaurant reviews in this policy as an indicator (or not) of notability for restaurant articles. Diego (talk) 13:14, 14 February 2012 (UTC)

These are some ideas I think can be used to assess the significance of a restaurant review:

  • The essence of Notability is "having something to say about the topic that is verifiable, and enough to write more than a couple of paragraphs".
  • Per WP:NEWSORG "The opinions of specialists and recognized experts are more likely to be reliable and to reflect a significant viewpoint". Thus critics offering their opinion in a significant way should be enough to establish notability. We should consensuate which criteria can be used to determine what is a "significant review".
  • The reliability of a review depends on the relevance of the critic, the amount of work dedicated to the critic, and the editorial process of the site where the work is published. This provides a gradual way to establish the significance that any particular review provides, and thus the strengt that it has towards notability. Below are some ones I think are valid:
  • We can copy what is used for significance in other guidelines. From Wikipedia:Notability (events) we get that an in-depth review is one that puts the restaurant in context, either by comparing it to other restaurants in the city or by stating how the restaurant is prominent in other ways. A review with this context should be regarded as giving notability.
  • A persistent coverage of the same restaurant over time (repeated reviews throug several years) or space (appearing in travel guides all over the world) would also be a sign of notability. But this should not be a requirement for the restaurant - notability could still be established by other means.
  • On the other hand, being a big restaurant of having a high number of customers is not a reason towards notability. A McFried at an important square may generate a lot of traffic and sell by volume, but if it has not been noted by critics then it's likely not notable.
  • Indiscriminate collection of information and related guidelines such WP:ROUTINE refer to raw data dumps. That's the reason why inclusion in "top" lists are usually not significant unless the list itself is notorious. On the other hand a "top restaurants" list that includess critical commentary could be seen as an in-depth review like above, as it places the restaurant in context.
  • Other specific guidelines (Wikipedia:AUTHOR, Wikipedia:Notability_(films), Wikipedia:Notability_(books)) have "critical commentary" as a criterion. AfDs for articles in these categories should be used for examples on how the significance for a critical review has been evaluated.

These are the relevant guidelines that I think can advise the proposed guideline change. Please comment what do you think of these criteria and discuss what other criteria would you like to use. Diego (talk) 11:43, 14 February 2012 (UTC)

The problem here is that "review" is too broad a concept. Not all "reviews" are the same. You have already mentioned the idea that "the reliability of a review depends on the relevance of the critic"... I would agree with that. Who wrote the review is an important aspect of determining whether the review demonstrates notability. However, there is another aspect that needs to be considered... the venue of the review (ie which guide/newspaper/TV show/etc. did the review appear in). A review in a small circulation local market newspaper is not the same as a review in a large circulation major Newspaper with a national readership. One aspect of Notability is how many people are likely to have heard of the subject/topic. A review in a major newspaper is more likely to indicate notability than one in a small town paper, simply because the major newspaper has a larger readership... so more people will have read the review. Blueboar (talk) 14:30, 14 February 2012 (UTC)
That's sort of a compromise then. Do you find anything in the proposed criteria that raises any red flag? Diego (talk) 13:47, 15 February 2012 (UTC)
Maybe we would be better to bring back the discussion of the notability guidelines for restaurants (Wikipedia:Notability (restaurants)) from a few years back? While it originally failed then, the recent discussions over the weight of reviews, Michelin stars and local coverage may warrant a new look at the guideline. These various reasons may provide enough of a reason for its reinstatement. --Jeremy (blah blah • I did it!) 14:58, 15 February 2012 (UTC)
Thanks! I wasn't aware of that discussion. It shows a really interesting case - Tom's Restaurant (Manhattan) is mentioned as the example of "a restaurant having its own notability" but then only includes local sources (the guideline contradicting itself BTW). Even if only the Columbia Daily Spectator and Morningside Heights neighbourhood webpage report about it, the facts that it was visited by Obama and used as stand-it for Seinfeld make it notable. Local reviews could be used to fill-in the details and provide context, and it's likely that they could reinforce the verifiability of those facts. Diego (talk) 15:18, 15 February 2012 (UTC)

I find the "exhaustive coverage of the area they serve" criterion intriguing. This is the same reason that "local coverage" is used against notability of organizations; maybe this should be used as the direct motivation why these sources shouldn't be used for notability, instead of the indirect "being local" or "being a review". This way, a local article or a critical review that clearly shows significant coverage of the topic wouldn't be questioned at AfDs, and inclusion of all companies within an area would still be avoided. Diego (talk) 16:33, 15 February 2012 (UTC)

The problem is we need define what constitutes exhaustive coverage. I think we would need to add the proposal from above and clarify all wording to ensure the "its in a reliable source, its notable" opinions and the "I ate there, and I liked/hated it" reviews are clearly shown to be ineligible as notability qualifiers. --Jeremy (blah blah • I did it!) 17:50, 15 February 2012 (UTC)
Agree. In any case we'll need a straw poll with high participation volume, with people commenting on the "exhaustive coverage" as well as all the other criteria, deciding which ones are accepted and which rejected as indicators of significant coverage. But I'm afraid this proposal didn't reach enough momentum to be decisive. Diego (talk) 18:20, 15 February 2012 (UTC)
Lets get this on the WP:Village Pump, WT:Companies, WT:Food and WT:Pubs pages and start asking for participants to join in the discussion. Also, lets move this to the Wikipedia talk:Notability (restaurants) page to properly get the ball rolling. --Jeremy (blah blah • I did it!) 21:09, 15 February 2012 (UTC)

To my opinion, all restaurants mentioned in the GaultMillau, Michelin Guide, Forbes Travel Guide and other respectable restaurant guides working with inspectors, are notable. But I can live with a limitation to their top-flight (Gault Millau:15 points and higher; Michelin: starred restaurants; Forbes: 4 and 5 starred restaurants etc.) Night of the Big Wind talk 12:22, 16 February 2012 (UTC)

I am still not a big fan of that interpretation but I can accept it. Well rated restaurants are usually notable, but not always as there are exceptions to every rule. --Jeremy (blah blah • I did it!) 20:50, 16 February 2012 (UTC)
I have written 80 articles about restaurants by now. All Michelin starred restaurants and all notable. But I admit, the older ones sometimes give me a hard time. Most notable troublemaker was Beaulieu, Doorwerth Castle, that was listed as Doorwerth Castle. Loads of info about the castle, almost nothing on the restaurant. Until the real restaurant name showed up... You are free to challenge them, but please, not all at the same time!!!!! Night of the Big Wind talk 04:34, 17 February 2012 (UTC)
I think there's a pretty simple rule of thumb for figuring out whether a review is "routine": routine reviews appear every day/week/month on a predictable, scheduled basis. In my local paper, a routine review is always printed full-width across the bottom of the front page of the C section every Wednesday. That's "routine": we're printing a restaurant review because it's Wednesday, not because anything special or newsworthy happened. WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:35, 23 February 2012 (UTC)
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